Misplaced Pages

Abdullah Baybaşin

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Kurdish drug trafficker

Abdullah Baybaşin
Baybaşin in 2019
Born1960 (age 63–64)
Lice, Turkey
Other namesThe Heroin Godfather
The Heroin Emperor
CitizenshipTurkey
Years active1980s–present
Known forIn the 2000s, he smuggled drugs to many European cities
Spouse Dicle Pırpırok ​(m. 1984)​
ChildrenÇağdaş Baybaşin (b. 1985)
RelativesHüseyin Baybaşin (brother)
Mehmet Baybaşin (brother)
FamilyBaybaşin family

Abdullah Baybaşin (born 1960) is a Kurdish drug trafficker and crime boss, the current head of the Baybaşin 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 permanently.

Life

Abdullah Baybaşin was born into a Kurdish farmer family in Lice, Turkey in 1960. He has brothers named Mahmut, Hüseyin, and Mehmet. In his own words, he was quiet and asocial as a child and liked to spend time alone. Due to the Turkish coup d'état in 1980, he and three Baybaşin members of his family emigrated to England.

In 1984, he married Dicle Pırpırok, a fellow countrywoman, and from this marriage his only child, Çağdaş Baybaşin (born 1985), was born.

According to his own testimony, he had a disabling accident in the Netherlands in 1986 and was confined to a wheelchair. However, according to the media, his disability was caused by an assassination attempt in a bar in England or the Netherlands.

Crime bossing and prosecution

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. In 2006, he was convicted of heroin trafficking and sentenced to 22 years in prison. 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. 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.

On 8 November 2010, compensation was ordered to be paid to Baybaşin in the amount of £20,000 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 HM Prison Belmarsh in London. 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."

References

  1. Brown, David (23 October 2010). "Courts in crisis: Britain's 'heroin godfather' is freed after smuggling retrial collapses". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 8 September 2024. Retrieved 8 September 2024.
  2. Thompson, Tony (17 November 2002). "Heroin 'emperor' brings terror to UK streets". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 25 July 2016. Retrieved 6 December 2024.
  3. Summers, Chris (6 May 2006). "The rise and fall of a drugs empire". BBC News. Archived from the original on 13 February 2008. Retrieved 26 January 2009.
  4. "Baybaşinler" [The Baybaşins]. Anadolu Türk İnterneti. 10 June 2002. Archived from the original on 29 May 2024. Retrieved 11 July 2024.
  5. ^ Baybaşin 2017, p. 11.
  6. Baybaşin 2017, p. 22–23.
  7. ^ Baybaşin 2017, p. 32.
  8. "Ailemize Karşı Başlatılan Operasyonlar". babil.com (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 27 November 2024. 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.]
  9. Baybaşin 2017, p. 30, 31.
  10. "Bolivya gemisinden 30 milyon dolarlık, 281.5 kg kokin çıktı". T24 (in Turkish). 29 January 2011. Retrieved 19 October 2024. 1980'li yıllarda İngiltere'de bir barda vurulunca tekerlekli sandelyeye mahkum olan Abdullah Baybaşin, emniyete de tekerlekli sandalye ile getirildi. [Abdullah Baybaşin, who was confined to a wheelchair after being shot in a bar in England in the 1980s, was brought to the police station in a wheelchair.]
  11. "Tekerlekli sandalye Türk baronların ortak noktası". Milliyet (in Turkish). 27 December 2014. Archived from the original on 12 April 2023. Retrieved 19 October 2024. 1980'li yıllarda İngiltere'de bir barda silahlı saldırıya uğrayan Baybaşin bu saldırı sonucu tekerlikli sandalyede yaşamaya başladı. [Baybaşin, who was the victim of a gun attack in a bar in England in the 1980s, began living in a wheelchair as a result of this attack.]
  12. Tosunoğlu, Devrim (29 April 2013). "4 uyuşturucu baronunun ortak sonu". Akşam (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 15 December 2024. Retrieved 19 October 2024. Abdullah Baybaşin ise Hollanda da bir barda çıkan kavgada belinden vurularak tekerlekli sandalyeye mahkum oldu. [Abdullah Baybaşin was confined to a wheelchair after being shot in the waist during a fight that broke out in a bar in the Netherlands.]
  13. "Case reveals tampering with intercepted evidence". Statewatch Bulletin Monitoring Civil Liberties in the European Union. 12 (3). May–July 2002. Archived from the original on 21 November 2008. Retrieved 31 January 2009.
  14. Pallister, David (15 May 2006). "Turkish drug gang leader jailed for 22 years". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  15. "Hüseyin Baybaşin hakkında bilgi" (in Turkish). Türkçe Bilgi-Ansiklopedi. Retrieved 25 January 2009.
  16. ^ Pallister, David (15 May 2006). "Turkish drug gang leader jailed for 22 years". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  17. FOX. "Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul news and weather". KMSP. Archived from the original on 28 July 2011. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  18. ^ 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

Categories: