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Before Cemil Önal was murdered in the Netherlands this week, he warned authorities his life was in danger due to his knowledge of bribes paid to Turkish politicians on behalf of an alleged illegal gambling syndicate, Follow the Money reported Friday.
Önal was gunned down on Thursday evening on the terrace of a hotel in the southern town of Rijswijk, near The Hague.
“We can hereby confirm that the victim is 41-year-old Cemil Önal,” said Michelle Molenaar, a spokesperson for the Dutch National Police.
“The investigation into the circumstances and the suspect is in full swing. A Large-Scale Investigation Team has also been set up for this purpose,” she told Follow the Money in an email.
Follow the Money said it had spoken on Monday to Önal, who said he expected an attack on his life. And his lawyer told Follow the Money that they had informed Dutch authorities.
“This serious threat has been reported to the Public Prosecution Service several times,” the lawyer said, requesting anonymity due to personal security fears.
The Dutch Public Prosecution Service confirmed that Önal and his lawyer had reported the threat.
"Up until now, there were insufficient concrete leads for the Public Prosecution Service to be able to conduct further investigation," a spokesperson said. "The Public Prosecution Service and the police have been in frequent contact with the victim and his lawyer about this."
Turkish authorities had named Önal as the “mastermind” behind the 2022 killing of Halil Falyali, Turkish Cypriot businessman who had allegedly generated about $80 million per month from illegal gambling operations.
Önal, a Turkish national, had told journalists he had nothing to do with Falyali’s murder.
Önal had been head of finance for Falyali, who was from northern Cyprus, a breakaway territory that only Turkey recognizes as independent. Önal told journalists he had made payments of roughly $15 million a month on behalf of Falyali’s organization to ruling party politicians in Turkey and northern Cyprus.
Netherlands police arrested Önal in December 2023 on an international warrant from Turkey, and he had been fighting extradition to his homeland.
In more than 20 hours of exclusive interviews from prison, Önal laid out the inner workings of the allegedly illegal operation for journalists in unprecedented detail. A month after the investigation was published in February, Önal told OCCRP he had been freed from prison.
Cemil Önal during an interview with OCCRP.
Önal recently spoke with Bugün Kıbrıs newspaper in northern Cyprus, repeating allegations about bribes and saying Falyali had made videos to blackmail politicians. The claims sparked outrage from the government in Turkey, where prosecutors have been investigating Falyali’s organization and indicted 240 people last December.
Responding to Turkish opposition politicians who had picked up on Önal's allegations, the office of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called it a “smear campaign.” Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the claims were "baseless," and threatened legal action.
This story has been updated with comment from the Dutch Public Prosecution Service.
