A restaurant worker caught in a gang feud was left with permanent injuries after being shot over a £100,000 demand, with the gang leader behind the attack now jailed for life.
Onur Guzel, 38, was shot in the abdomen outside his family’s Umut 2000 restaurant in Dalston, east London, on June 20 last year, after Hackney Turks gang leader Beytullah Gunduz, 40, accused his family of paying rival gang the Tottenham Turks.
Gunduz had demanded £100,000 from the family. Prosecutors said he was at the centre of an extortion operation targeting Guzel and other businesses in the area.
Guzel told the court the shooting had changed his life, leaving him with irreversible injuries and dependent on a stoma bag while awaiting surgery.
“The attack did far more than injuring me physically. It has altered the course of my life. It has taken my sense of safety,” he said in a victim impact statement.
Gunduz was not in the car when gunman Dogan Over shot Guzel but was in the area assisting him. Over fled to Istanbul five days later and has not returned.
The shooting was linked to a violent feud between the Hackney Turks and Tottenham Turks. In May 2024, an attack targeting Gunduz left a nine-year-old girl with a bullet lodged in her brain.
Guzel’s family had also received threats demanding £100,000, with a message warning that family members’ heads would be blown off. Gunmen had earlier fired five shots at the restaurant.
Judge Mark Lucraft KC said Guzel was another person outside the feuding groups who had suffered life-changing injuries, adding that the attack was intended to force businesses on the gang’s perceived territory to pay.
