Huseyin Baybasin was the leader of violent group linked to a drive-by shooting that left a nine-year-old girl fighting for her life and over a dozen murders in the UK as part of a bloody feud with rivals the Tottenham Turks
The ex-boss of a gang linked to a drive-by shooting which left a girl of nine fighting for her life will learn if he is to be freed from prison in the coming weeks.
Huseyin Baybasin, 69 – dubbed Europe’s Pablo Escobar – was jailed for life in the Netherlands for complicity in murders and drug trafficking. But now a court has heard that a decision will be made before March on whether he should finally be released, the Dutch newspaper Trouw reports.
If so, he will not be permitted to remain in Holland and is not welcome in his native Turkey. Baybain’s lawyers say another European country has agreed to take him but they have refused to disclose which one.
Baybasin masterminded the export of vast quantities of heroin while leading the Hackney Bombers organised crime group. Its fight for control of the drugs trade and racketeering operations has caused a long running feud with rivals, the Tottenham Turks.
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It has led to more than a dozen murders, a series of kidnappings and the shooting of the girl outside the Evin restaurant in Dalston, East London in May last year. They include the murder of all three of the brothers who led the Tottenham Turks gang and a string of family members belonging to the rival Hackney Bombers mob.
Earlier this month, the administrative court in Utrecht rejected Baybasin’s application for a temporary identity document, which he claims he needs for his release. According to the judge, he cannot be issued with the papers because he is living in the Netherlands unlawfully.
Baybasin is unable go on unescorted leave due to his lack of transparency about the country he can go to after his release. He has been in custody in the Netherlands since 1998. “There’s a systematic delay here,” Adèle van der Plas, Baybasin’s lawyer, told the court. “We’re completely dependent on the Ministry of Justice and Security, which is extremely reluctant to cooperate with his release.”
Baybasin told the court: “I’ve been in this country for three decades now, I will continue my fight.” He has always denied the charges. He claims that the Netherlands was pressured by the Turkish authorities to detain him. In 2023, after 25 years of imprisonment, the Advisory Board for Life Sentenced Prisoners approved him to begin a program to gradually reintegrate into society.
A decision on his pardon will be made by March at the latest, based on how his reintegration has progressed over the past three years, Trouw reports..
The Bombers, or Bombacilar as they are known in Turkish, acquired a fearsome reputation when it was run by Baybasin and two brothers, known as “The Family”. Huseyin was arrested in Holland while his brother Abdullah, 64, who was confined to a wheelchair after being shot by a rival in the 1980s, arrived in Britain via Gibraltar in 1997.
Third brother Mehmet, 60, worked with Liverpool gangs to import vast quantities of cocaine into the UK from Latin America. Mehmet, who lived in Edgware, Middlesex, travelled to South America regularly for meetings with representatives of Colombian and Venezuelan cartels.
He is currently serving a 30-year sentence in Whitemoor prison, Cambs, for attempting to import 40 tonnes of cocaine after he was jailed in Liverpool in 2011.
At the height of his power in the 1980s, Pablo Escobar was said to be the seventh richest man in the world. His Medellin drugs cartel in Colombia was thought to be behind up to 80% of all the cocaine shipped to the United States.
