Assassin jailed as warning to 'warlords'

Murat Over: "Vicious and totally amoral"

A heroin dealer who gunned down a police informant and rival in a London street has been jailed for life.

Judge Gerald Gordon told Murat Over: 'I make it clear that the minimum period I am going to recommend you serve must reflects a real determination to prevent this country becoming host to drug warlords and their minions."

Over, 29, was convicted on Tuesday of the murder of Mehmet Adiguzel on 25 May 2000.

He is currently serving a 13 year sentence for conspiracy to supply heroin.

His co-accused, Burhani Canpolat, was acquitted.

Adiguzel, 37, from Waltham Abbey, Essex, was shot six times in broad daylight as he sat in a traffic jam in Hackney, east London.

Turkish murders in London

Mar 1994: Mehmet Kaygusuz, 33, shot while playing backgammon in Islington café. Unsolved.

May 2000: Mehmet Adiguzel, 37, shot dead in Hackney. One man jailed.

May 2001: Sami Mustafa, 26, and Hasan Mamali, 23, shot dead in Islington. Unsolved.

Jul 01: Oguzhan Ozdemir, 26, shot and dumped on towpath in Tottenham. Unsolved

Nov 02: Alisan Dogan, 43, died in mass brawl in Finsbury Park.

The victim, known as Cakir - which means Emerald in Turkish - had many enemies in London's Turkish community.

Adiguzel's front as a property developer was cover for his real money-making scheme - big time drug dealing. But he was also a police informer.

Revenge

Timothy Langdale, QC, prosecuting, said Cakir mixed in underworld circles and it was not surprising that some may want him dead.

Mr Canpolat, a 36-year-old heroin addict and political refugee, denied he was the masked gunman.

The court heard that Over, who drove the getaway car, wanted revenge after being stabbed by one of Cakir's bodyguards.

But there may have been many motives and Over may have been paid by others who stood to gain from Cakir's death.

The Old Bailey jury was told there were lists of the many people Adiguzel lived in fear of.

It has proved that we are impacting in our war on drug-related crime, and particularly Turkish drug-related crime.

Detective Chief Inspector Michael O'Keefe

They included the Karakas family - named in court as Erol, Nazmi, Alican and Remzi Karakas - and the Guven family, as well as the Kurdish nationalist PKK and the radical Dev Sol terror group.

Detective Chief Inspector Michael O'Keefe, who led the inquiry, said he totally agreed with the judge's comments and added: "We have put away a vicious and totally amoral criminal."

He said he had "mixed feelings", in view of Mr Canpolat's acquittal.

But he told BBC News Online: "It has proved that we are impacting in our war on drug-related crime, and particularly Turkish drug-related crime."

DCI O'Keefe urged the public to continue to help the police to overcome the drug barons and added: "We live in pagan times, where premeditated and casual violence go hand in hand."