- Jurors at the Old Bailey heard the extent of the injuries Koray Alpergin suffered
- Mr Alpergin and girlfriend were abducted as they returned home last October
A murdered Turkish radio DJ’s last words to his sobbing girlfriend were ‘be quiet my love’ before she was beaten unconscious by a gang of kidnappers who went on to kill him, a court heard.
The body of DJ Koray Alpergin, 43, was discovered near the Oakwood Hill Industrial Estate in Loughton, Essex, on October 15 last year.
Mr Alpergin, from northern Cyprus, was the owner of Turkish radio station Bizim FM and had connections with celebrities such as rapper P Diddy and internet sensation ‘Salt Bae’.
He was kidnapped from outside his flat in Enfield with girlfriend Gozde Dalbudak, 34, and they were ‘frog-marched’ into a white van after arriving home from an expensive Italian restaurant in Mayfair, the Old Bailey heard.
Mr Alpergin was beaten with a baseball bat, boiling water was poured on him along with other horrific torture methods, while Ms Gozde was knocked unconscious and locked in a toilet for two days, jurors were told.
DJ Koray Alpergin, 43, was kidnapped from outside his flat in Enfield with girlfriend Gozde Dalbudak, 34, and they were ‘frog-marched’ into a white van after arriving home from an expensive Italian restaurant in Mayfair
His naked body was then dumped in woodland and vehicles used set it alight before the corpse was found by a dog walker, the court heard.
Steffan Gordon, 34, Tejean Kennedy, 33, Samuel Owusu-Opuku, 35, Junior Kettle, 32, and Ali Kavak, 26, deny murder and false imprisonment.
Kennedy, Owusu-Opuku, Kettle and Kavak also deny kidnap of Mr Alpergin and Ms Dalbudak on 13 October 2022, while Gordon admits it.
Kavak and Erdogan Ulcay, 56, deny perverting the course of justice by assisting with the disposal of Mr Alpergin’s body or the destruction by fire of a Fiat Diablo van and Renault Megane.
Mehmet Kocakerim, who owns a restaurant called Mem and Laz, told the court today that Ms Dalbudak had come to his restaurant after her release by the kidnappers.
He said that he had been friends with Mr Alpergin for 15 years and on 9 October 2022 he had come to his restaurant with Ms Dalbudak.
Koray Alpergin (pictured) was found near the Oakwood Hill Industrial Estate in Loughton, Essex, by a dogwalker on October 15
Mr Alpergin and girlfriend Gozde Dalbudak, 34, (pictured) were abducted as they returned to their home in Enfield from a Mayfair restaurant on October 13 last year
Mr Alpergin told him they had met during the summer and called her ‘my future wife’.
Mr Kocakerim said on the following Saturday he learnt that Mr Alpergin was missing.
At around 3pm he said someone came into the restaurant.
‘Suddenly a lady came in. At first I thought that she was a beggar or something because she didn’t have any make up on and she looked very rough and everything.
‘I approached her and said ‘how can I help you’ and she said ‘don’t you recognise me?’
‘I said ‘no, I don’t recognise you madam’ and she said she was Koray’s girlfriend.
‘She had a bruised nose and bruises under her eyes, she had a big hat on her head and an oversized green jacket.’
Ms Dalbudak asked him for money so she could pay the taxi she had used to take to the restaurant.
‘She looked scared,’ said Mr Kocakerim.
‘I wasn’t sure if someone was following her or something, I asked if we needed to call the police.
‘She said she didn’t want the police involved, all she wanted was to get her passport and to fly out. I said I don’t think you can do that because everybody’s looking for you.
‘She asked to use my phone to call her family in Turkey – she called a Turkish number.
‘She called and both sides were crying, they were worried.’
Ms Dalbudak was released having spent two days locked in a toilet near Tottenham’s stadium in north London, and was mistaken as a homeless person when she attempted to get help
A family friend then came to pick her up, he said.
In summaries of her police interviews read to court today, Ms Dalbudak said she had met Mr Alpergin though a female friend in Turkey in June 2022.
She said they flirted for a while and after a couple of months she planned to come to London for about five days so they could get to know each other better.
She came on 10 October and had a return booked for 16 October.
Mr Alpergin took her sightseeing and to ‘the best restaurants’, she said, adding that she didn’t know him that well but he had shown her affection and she wanted to spend more time with him.
On the night of the kidnap she was wearing black leather trousers with boots, a cream top and cream tench coat.
Ms Dalbudak said a man appeared at the side of the car with a metal bread knife and told her to shut up.
She saw three or four males holding Mr Alpergin and she was very scared, she said.
Ms Dalbudak said she as placed in the back of the van and was crying loudly;
The men told her to shut up and Mr Alpergin said ‘be quiet my love.’
Ms Daldubak told police she thought she was going to die.
She said she was knocked out by being punched twice in the face.
Her next memory was being inside a dark place and hearing Mr Alpergin and someone hitting or beating him.
She could hear him shouting in English. She tried to explain she was a tourist on holiday and was crying a lot, she said.
Her hands and feet were tied and she was blindfolded and made to walk to to a toilet where she was locked up.
The lavatory only had a tiny bit of light and smelled like fish or dead animals, she said.
Her trench coat, an iPhone, a gold bracelet and a necklace with a heart shaped diamond pendant bought for her by a previous partner were taken, she said.
She tried to tell them ‘ticket, Istanbul airport’ and said, in her limited English, she would go to Istanbul and not go to the police.
She said she was in a state of fear and panic and wanted to get out as soon as possible.
Ms Dalbudak later turned up at Kentish Town Police station and was placed into special protection as Mr Alpergin had been found dead, the court heard.
Parveen Ramjeawon, a friend of Mr Alpergin, told the court the DJ was subdued after returning from Turkey in September 2022.
She said she had been friends with Mr Alpergin for several years and in the year before his death would see him nearly every day at the gym, his house or his DJ events.
‘He’d DJ Turkish music – the events were aimed at the Turkish community.. He would go back to Turkey to DJ, holiday, see friends and family – mostly in the summer.
Prosecutor Crispin Aylett, KC, asked how Mr Alpergin was when he returned from Turkey in summer 2022.
Ms Ramjeawon replied: ‘He wasn’t himself. He was completely different.
‘He’s always been a happy go lucky guy- he was very caring, very loving, always laughing, joking- he liked to have fun.
‘When he was stressed he was very quiet. I could tell he was very stressed.
‘He said there was a lot going on in his mind. He said he had said the wrong thing to the wrong person and they wanted to question him.
‘I asked him more but he never ever told me anything. He always kept me away from harms way.’
Ms Ramjeawon said that on 24 September they went the gym before driving back to Mr Alpergin’s house in their separate cars.
‘We were driving down the road and he rang me- he said to me his car’s making a weird sound.
‘I made a joke and asked him if his car was being bugged.
‘He didn’t react. He went quiet.’
‘He normally parks in a car park opposite his apartment – but when we got back he didn’t park there, he said he was going to park somewhere else and walk to the back door and to meet him there.
‘I found that odd.’
She said they got to the flat at about 9.30pm and she stayed there for around two hours.
‘He was very quiet- preoccupied on his phone, very minimal conversation.
‘When we leave he would normally drop me to the back of the building door, instead he didn’t and he said to me when you’re in the car park let me know if you see a white van.’
Ms Ramjeawon said she did not see Mr Alpergin again but spoke to him on the phone and on Whatsapp.
‘He was still quiet – he was just never the same. His brain was just so preoccupied that I knew he was going through something.’
Ms Ramjeawon said she had not met Ms Dalbudak but Mr Alpergin had mentioned her.
‘I knew she was coming over but he didn’t want her to come over.
‘The day I met him on 24th he said they were going through a lot of problems, they were arguing.
‘She had booked to come over but he said he didn’t want her to come.
She said she ‘wouldn’t say it was a relationship.’
‘They weren’t fully together they were just seeing each other.
‘Around the time she had just come over or she was coming over we were going to go to the gym together and I said no,’ she said.
Kennedy, of Cricklewood Broadway, Cricklewood, Owusu-Opuku, of Dunbar Road, Wood Green, Kettle, of Kingsdown Road, Islington, and Kavak, of De Quincey Road, Tottenham, deny murder and two counts of kidnap and false imprisonment.
Gordon, of Dehavilland Close, Northolt, denies murder and two counts of false imprisonment.
Ulcay, of Oakeshott Avenue, Camden and Kavak deny preventing the course of justice.
The trial continues tomorrow.
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