Abdullah Baybaşin
Abdullah Baybaşin | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1960 (age 63–64) Lice, Diyarbakır, Turkey |
| Other names | The Godfather[1] |
| Citizenship | Turkey |
| Years active | 1980s–today |
| Known for | In the 2000s, he smuggled drugs to many European cities |
| Spouse |
Dicle Pırpırok (m. 1984) |
| Children | Çağdaş Baybaşin (b. 1985) |
| Relatives | Hüseyin Baybaşin (brother) Mehmet Baybaşin (brother) |
| Family | Baybaşin family |
Abdullah Baybaşin (born 1960) is a Turkish drug trafficker and crime boss, the current head of the Baybaşin crime family. Following the imprisonment of his brother Hüseyin Baybaşin in 2002, he actively engaged in drug trafficking. He was imprisoned in the United Kingdom in 2006 and released in 2011 and as of 2012, he has returned to Turkey in full.
Life
[edit]Abdullah Baybaşin was born into a Kurdish farmer family in Lice, Diyarbakır in 1960.[2][3] He has brothers named Mahmut, Hüseyin, and Mehmet.[4] In his own words, he was quiet and asocial as a child and liked to spend time alone.[4] Due to the Turkish coup d'état in 1980, he and three Baybaşin members of his family emigrated to England.[5]
In 1984, he married Dicle Pırpırok,[6] a fellow countrywoman, and from this marriage his only child, Çağdaş Baybaşin (born 1985), was born.[6][7]
Crime bossing and prosecution
[edit]In 1998, Baybaşin took over drugs and arms trafficking in the United Kingdom as the successor of his elder brother Hüseyin Baybaşin, who was arrested in Operation Black Tulip and imprisoned in 2002.[8][9][10] In 2006, he was convicted of heroin trafficking and sentenced to 22 years in prison.[11] The Court of Appeal in England ordered a retrial on the drugs charge in 2010 after determining that the judge's summing up of the evidence at the trial was unfair.
On 22 October 2010, at a retrial, a judge at Woolwich Crown Court in London ordered the jury to find Baybaşin not guilty on the grounds that the conviction could not be supported due to insufficient prosecution evidence.[11] Judge Charles Byers said there was no direct evidence that Baybaşin was involved in a conspiracy to supply heroin and there was little circumstantial evidence.[12]
On 8 November 2010, Baybaşin was ordered to pay £20,000 in compensation by the Prison Service. The Ministry of Justice acknowledged that Baybaşin, who uses a wheelchair, had been subjected to degrading treatment and discrimination because of his disability while in Belmarsh prison in London.[13] After hearing the Ministry's decision, Baybaşin said: "The treatment I received there (in prison) was very humiliating and at times I found it difficult to cope. I thought I would die in prison and often thought things would never get better."[13]
References
[edit]- ^ Brown, David (23 October 2010). "Courts in crisis: Britain's 'heroin godfather' is freed after smuggling retrial collapses". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 8 September 2024.
- ^ Summers, Chris (6 May 2006). "The rise and fall of a drugs empire". BBC News. Retrieved 26 January 2009.
- ^ "Baybaşinler" [The Baybaşins]. Anadolu Türk İnterneti. 10 June 2002. Retrieved 11 July 2024.
- ^ a b Baybaşin 2017, p. 11.
- ^ Baybaşin 2017, p. 22–23.
- ^ a b Baybaşin 2017, p. 32.
- ^ "Ailemize Karşı Başlatılan Operasyonlar". babil.com (in Turkish). Retrieved 17 October 2024.
1984 yılında evlenir ve 1985 yılında ilk ve tek oğlu Çağdaş dünyaya gelir.
[In 1984, he got married and Çağdaş, him first and only son, was born in 1985.] - ^ "Case reveals tampering with intercepted evidence". Statewatch Bulletin Monitoring Civil Liberties in the European Union. 12 (3). May–July 2002. Retrieved 31 January 2009.
- ^ Pallister, David (15 May 2006). "Turkish drug gang leader jailed for 22 years". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
- ^ "Hüseyin Baybaşin hakkında bilgi" (in Turkish). Türkçe Bilgi-Ansiklopedi. Retrieved 25 January 2009.[permanent dead link]
- ^ a b Pallister, David (15 May 2006). "Turkish drug gang leader jailed for 22 years". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
- ^ FOX. "Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul news and weather". KMSP. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
- ^ a b Travis, Alan (8 November 2010). "Disabled prisoner to be paid £20,000 for discrimination at Belmarsh". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
Works cited
[edit]- Baybaşin, Abdullah (2017). Ailemize Karşı Başlatılan Operasyonlar. Pêrî Yayınları. ISBN 9786059649100.