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Ahmet Paytak and son Huseyin Paytak |
Shooting victim leaves hospital bed to see murdered dad buried
Turkish funeral for victim as police plead: Did you see bike used in killing?
THE body of shooting victim Ahmet Paytak was buried in Turkey yesterday (Thursday), with his 21-year-old son, who was gunned down beside him, released from hospital to be there.
Mr Paytak, 50, was killed as he closed the shop where he worked in Hornsey Road, Holloway, on Mothering Sunday in what police believe was a case of mistaken identity.
Friends comforting the Kurdish shop-worker’s wife Ayse and three children at their Skinner Street home in Finsbury said the family left for Turkey on Wednesday to bury Ahmet.
The shooting occurred after a motorbike pulled onto the pavement outside Euro Wine and Food, at the junction with Tollington Road.
A pillion rider got off, shot Mr Paytak first, killing him with a bullet to the stomach, before turning the gun on his son Huseyin. The motorbike then sped off towards Seven Sisters Road and Blackstock Road.
Last week, police said they believed the victim was an innocent man caught up in a feud between rival Turkish drug-dealing gangs.
Huseyin, who was shot at three times, was released from hospital on Monday so he could attend the funeral. He is in a wheelchair after undergoing surgery to repair a shattered thigh bone.
Police have released new CCTV images of the shooting and a photograph identifying the motorbike model, a rare Benelli TNT 899, known to have been stolen in Holborn in October and since used for criminal purposes.
Detective Chief Inspector Carl Mehta said the model was one of just eight in London, and only 112 in the country.
“I’m desperately looking for that bike,” he added. “I really need the public’s help. Did they see the bike between October and now? Parked up somewhere? In and out of a garage? Has a neighbour suddenly acquired a fancy bike and been using it in the last four-and-a-half months? The use of that bike and where it’s been is critically important.”
In November the bike was involved in a supermarket robbery in Camden, and later that month received a parking ticket in Elton Place, Stoke Newington. In February, it activated a speed camera in Seven Sisters Road, Holloway.
Det Chief Insp Mehta re-issued his appeal for information about the bikers and the gun used in the attack.
He urged anyone with information to come forward. “People may feel frightened about giving evidence,” he said. “I want to reassure them that information can be given in confidence.
“There are ways we can offer them protection. Come and talk to us.”
His team have been working 16-hour days and weekends in their battle to find the killers. Tracing north London Turkish drugs gangs – suspected of involvement in tit-for-tat violence which led to the murder – is a “key line of our inquiry”.
Meanwhile, two weeks on from the killing, a community still in shock has left flowers and cards to “the nice man at the corner shop”.
A bunch of flowers and a note, handwritten on a blue piece of paper from a boy who lives in the area, reveals the impact the hard-working shopkeeper’s death has had.
The card, “from Monay, aged 6,” reads: “Thank you for all the sweeties and jokes, you made me laugh, and I will miss you so much. I hope you are in Heaven.”
Last week the dead man’s wife Ayse left a heartbreaking tribute to her husband at the scene, describing how she hoped he had “become an angel and flown away to Heaven”.
Anyone with information can call the incident room on 020 8345 3734 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. |
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