Dutch police release photo of Cemil Onal murder suspect

The Dutch police have made public a photograph of the man they suspect of having murdered Cemil Onal, the man who made allegations of a deep money-laundering and smuggling network based in Cyprus involving some of the most powerful men in Turkey during a series of interviews.

Onal was shot dead in Rijswijk, a suburb of The Hague, on May 1, with the Dutch police saying the shooter is “described as a man about 1.8 metres tall, with a normal to sturdy build, a beard, and black clothing, of which the clothes are very likely Adidas branded”.

At the time of the shooting, local news website Omroep West reported that the hotel’s owner had said he had seen “a man approaching without a face covering,” who then fired shots at the victim before running away.

An eyewitness said he had “heard three bangs and then saw someone run past”.

Onal was the former financial advisor of Turkish Cypriot businessman Halil Falyali, who was himself shot dead in February 2022 near Kyrenia.

He had himself been arrested in the Netherlands in 2023 in connection with the Falyali assassination but successfully fought extradition to Turkey saying that his life would be in danger if sent back to the country.

His assassination comes after he gave a series of interviews to Cypriot news website Bugun Kibris regarding Falyali’s dealings with the highest levels of Turkey’s government and its ruling AK Party.

Onal had made reference to “dirty money being laundered”, bribes, and a “dirty network”, and has, according to Bugun Kibris, handed documents to American and Dutch intelligence.

At the centre of his allegations are a reported 45 or 46 cassette tapes which Falyali had kept and intended, if and when necessary, to use as blackmail against powerful figures.

According to Onal, Erdogan and his Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who was also allegedly involved in the illicit business, appointed the son of longtime Erdogan ally and former controller of his discretionary funds Maksut Serim as Turkey’s ambassador in the north with the aim of recovering the tapes.

Yasin Ekrem Serim was appointed as ambassador last summer and, according to Onal, told, “get those tapes and bring them back, that is how you will rise in the state”.

However, it has been reported that while Turkey’s National intelligence organisation (Mit) had discovered that there were a total of 45 or 46 such tapes, Serim only recovered 40, and kept the other five for himself.

Turkey’s presidential communications directorate slammed the allegations, describing them as “fictitious” and “unfounded”, while the country’s foreign ministry promised to take legal action over the matter, describing the allegations as “unfounded” and “not based on any concrete evidence”.

Meanwhile, in Cyprus, Aysemden Akin, the journalist who had interviewed Onal, had reported that she had received a death threat over the interviews.

She then requested police protection as a result, before finding herself at loggerheads with the Turkish Cypriot police earlier in the week over the matter of protection, after she said she had been told a police car which had parked outside her front door for half an hour every morning after Onal was shot dead would no longer be at her disposal.

The police eventually relented and promised to continue sending the police car to her house, but journalists demanded more protection, saying Akin remains unsafe with the current state of affairs, and gathering outside the Turkish Cypriot police’s headquarters to show their frustration.

“The Turkish Cypriot press has recently been systematically intimidated, frightened and silenced. It is both excluded and discriminated against,” Serap Sahin, representative of the Cyprus Turkish journalists’ union said  in her speech outside the police headquarters.

“Aysemden Akin is being subjected to death threats because she shed light on the dark relations in our country and put her byline to an interview which made headlines all over the world. Those who govern this country, the police, and the authorities to which the police are affiliated are responsible for Aysemden Akin’s safety,” she added.