Man jailed for aiding DJ's kidnap and killing

A man has been jailed for helping a drug dealer involved in the kidnap, torture and killing of a popular London radio DJ.

Mehmet Koray Alpergin, 43, and his girlfriend Gozde Dalbudak were abducted in central London on 13 October 2022. Mr Alpergin was tortured before his body was dumped in woodland in Essex.

Zubair Iqbal, 33, of Ilford in east London, was cleared of conspiracy to kidnap but convicted of assisting an offender following a separate trial earlier this year. On Friday, he was sentenced to 10 months in prison.

Iqbal was an associate of Tejean Kennedy, who was previously found guilty of the kidnap and false imprisonment of the couple, as well as Mr Alpergin's manslaughter.

Jurors at the Old Bailey heard how the couple were travelling home to Enfield from a Mayfair restaurant when they were snatched and taken to a wine bar, which backs on to White Hart Lane, where the father-of-two was attacked. His body was later dumped in woodland.

Ms Dalbudak, 36, was locked in a toilet for two days before being freed and given money for a taxi.

The court had previously heard Mr Alpergin had suffered 94 separate injuries.

Iqbal assisted Kennedy for around seven hours on the night Mr Alpergin was killed, providing him with a safe house to leave his clothing and mobile phone in, and laundering money for him, the court heard.

Judge Sarah Whitehouse KC told the defendant that while she accepted he did not know the extent of "the gravity and the horrors of what was planned" for Mr Alpergin and Ms Dalbudak, he must have been aware that a serious criminal enterprise was afoot at the time.

She said: "This was a very sophisticated plan to kidnap and torture Mr Alpergin. You are not a naive man and you are intelligent."

"You must have been aware of what was going on because Kennedy was in the habit of using other people to further his own criminality."

Iqbal and his brother used to run a chicken shop which Kennedy used for packaging the drugs he sold. He also use Iqbal's bank account to launder money.

Kennedy, who has ties to the Tottenham Turks organised crime gang, would also use Iqbal's bank account to launder monies, presumably for payments to criminal third parties, the court was told.

On the night Mr Alpergin and Ms Dalbudak were abducted, there was a "high level of telephone communications" between Iqbal and Kennedy, Judge Whitehouse said.

Kennedy used Iqbal's house prior to the kidnapping to change his clothing and left his personal mobile phone on charge and connected to the internet to make it look as though he had stayed at the defendant's house on the night of the offence.

She told Iqbal that Mr Alpergin's family "have suffered terribly knowing what Mr Alpergin's last hours were like".

Mr Alpergin, originally from northern Cyprus, was a well-known figure in the British Turkish community and owned Bizim FM, a Turkish-language radio station in London.

Three men - Dylan Weatherley, Kyrie Mitchell-Peart, and Isay Stoyanov - were jailed last year for their part in the kidnap and killing of Mr Alpergin.

Weatherley, 20, from Tottenham, north London, was sentenced to five years for the manslaughter of Mr Alpergin and his kidnap and false imprisonment.

Mitchell-Peart, 33, from Barnet, who had pleaded guilty to the kidnap and false imprisonment of Mr Alpergin and his girlfriend, was sentenced to six years and four months.

Bulgarian painter and decorator Stoyanov, 44, from Seven Sisters in north London, was found guilty of perverting the course of justice and jailed for 18 months.

In a separate 2023 trial, four more men were convicted for their roles.

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