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A popular Turkish DJ who was “horrifically tortured” to death in London tried to comfort his girlfriend in his final moments as she was locked up blindfolded in a bathroom, according to shocking court proceedings.
Mehmet Koray Alpergin, 43, and his girlfriend, Gozde Dalbudak, 34, were kidnapped by six men near Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on their way home from an Italian restaurant in upscale Mayfair on Oct. 13, 2022.
They were taken to an empty wine bar, where Dalbudak was blindfolded and locked in a dingy bathroom while Alpergin was beaten, scalded with hot water and stabbed on his feet, a jury was told.
Even as he was being mercilessly tortured, Alpergin tried to reassure his girlfriend, who had arrived in the UK just three days earlier, according to Metro.
“My love, don’t be scared,” Dalbudak heard her boyfriend calling out to her, prosecutor Crispin Aylett told the court.
“Sorry, my love,” she heard him call — before it was broken by shouting and screams of pain from Alpergin, who owned Turkish radio station Bizim FM.
Alpergin’s harrowing final moments were detailed Thursday in the trial of six London men charged with murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment and perverting justice.
The DJ’s naked body was dumped in woods on Oct. 15 and later discovered by a dog walker.
Dalbudak said she had been struck in the face and knocked out by the thugs after being abducted. She spent almost two days locked up in the bathroom before she was released.
She had arrived in the UK from Turkey for the first time only three days before the deadly abduction, the court heard Thursday.
“This had been her first, and no doubt last, visit to the UK,” the prosecutor, Aylett, told the court, according to Metro.
“Ms. Dalbudak went back to Turkey on Oct. 21, 2022. Although she has remained in contact with police officers in London, she has not come back to the UK,” he said.
“Nor is she willing to do so for the purposes of this trial. Nor is she prepared to give evidence over a live link from Turkey.
“For perfectly understandable reasons, you may think, she wants to put the whole thing behind her.”
An autopsy revealed 94 injuries to Alpergin’s body, Aylett said.
”The prosecution allege that Koray Alpergin was kidnapped and tortured either so that he might be punished for something that he had done or else forced to give up something that he knew — perhaps the whereabouts of either drugs or money — and which his kidnappers also wanted to know,” he said.
“It is obvious that before his death, Koray Alpergin had been stripped naked and horrifically tortured,” the prosecutor continued.
“From the number and nature of the injuries sustained, the prosecution suggests that it is not hard to envisage a group of sadistic thugs taking it in turns to inflict injury, whether with punches and kicks, hitting him with a bat, scalding him with boiling water, stabbing his feet,” he added.
Jurors were told Alpergin was not his usual “happy-go-lucky” self and seemed anxious before the abduction. He also was allegedly in debt, including around $40,000 just for his car, the Telegraph reported.
Steffan Gordon, 34, Tejean Kennedy, 33, Samuel Owusu-Opoku, 35, Junior Kettle, 32, Ali Kavak, 26, and Erdogan Ulcay, 56, face charges of murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment and perverting justice.
Kennedy, Owusu-Opoku, Kettle and Kavak deny the murder charge and false imprisonment and kidnapping charges.
Gordon admitted to kidnapping but denied the murder and false imprisonment. Ulcay and Kavak deny the perversion charges. Owusu-Opoku admitted to it, according to the outlet.
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