German authorities on Thursday, at the request of the Dutch, arrested a man identified by the media as former Turkish prosecutor Bayram Bozkurt in connection with the killing of Turkish whistleblower Cemil Önal in the Netherlands.
Dutch police said a 47-year-old-man from Bergheim in western Germany was arrested in Germany on Thursday on suspicion of involvement in the May 1 shooting of Önal on a hotel terrace in the town of Rijswijk, near The Hague.
Police did not release the suspect’s name, saying only that Dutch prosecutors had asked Germany to hand him over and that the investigation into the gunman and a second suspect was still under way.
Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported that the man is “Bayram B.,” whom it described as a former Turkish prosecutor and the person who was sitting at Önal’s table when the gunman opened fire.
Several Turkish outlets, citing Dutch and Cypriot reporting, named the suspect as former prosecutor Bayram Bozkurt and said he was detained in Bergheim after months of investigation into the Rijswijk shooting.
According to these reports Bozkurt was the only person at the table who survived the attack and had previously spoken to Turkish media about his presence during the shooting and his contacts with Önal.
Authorities have not said what role they believe the arrested man may have played in the killing, and there has been no public announcement of formal charges in the Netherlands or Germany.
Önal, 41, was shot dead in broad daylight while sitting on the terrace of a hotel in Rijswijk, a town near The Hague, in what Dutch police described as a targeted attack.
He was a Turkish national who had worked for years as the financial manager for Halil Falyalı, a casino owner and alleged crime boss in the northern part of Cyprus, which is under Turkish control, and later gave detailed accounts of suspected money laundering and covert payments involving Turkish and Turkish Cypriot political figures.
In interviews with Dutch investigative outlet Follow the Money and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Önal said Falyalı’s gambling operations generated tens of millions of dollars a month and that part of this money was moved through offshore companies in Curaçao and paid out as “sponsorships” to officials linked to ruling parties in Turkey and northern Cyprus.
He repeatedly told Dutch authorities and journalists that he feared for his life because of what he knew about these financial structures and said shortly before his death that his disclosures “would be the death” of him, according to Follow the Money’s reporting.
Dutch media have reported that Önal had recently been released from custody in the Netherlands and was awaiting a decision on a Turkish request for his extradition in connection with a 2022 double murder in northern Cyprus that killed Falyalı and his driver, a role he denied.
After his release he continued to speak with Dutch, Turkish Cypriot and international reporters and was staying in a hotel under police monitoring because of security concerns at the time of the attack.
The Dutch Public Prosecution Service has said it had been in regular contact with Önal and his lawyer about reported threats but that there had not been “sufficient concrete leads” to open a formal investigation before the shooting.