Six convicted, sentenced to 5 to 30 years in prison for mistaken ID murder of handyman

The court of Gelderland convicted all six defendants in the criminal trial about an apparent mistaken identity murder that took place in Beuningen more than two years ago. At the conclusion of the trial on Tuesday, the court handed out prison terms ranging from five to thirty years, though prosecutors had called for harsher sentences from 20 years to life behind bars.

The six were suspected of killing Nijmegen handyman Mehmet Kiliçsoy. The 49-year-old was shot in the head and upper body on the morning of 6 July 2020 on Thorbeckeplein in Beuningen, Gelderland. Two masked men opened fire on him from a stolen white Volkswagen Transporter. The court agreed with the theory the victim was targeted by mistake, because the police could never find a motive. In its ruling, the court said it did not believe Kiliçsoy was not the intended target, calling the incident a fatal mistake where the intended target remains unknown.

The court believes Jomairo D. (29) from Amsterdam was the man who orchestrated the killing. Prosecutors advised a life sentence for him, but the court on Tuesday gave him 30 years instead. Prison sentences of 20 to 28 years were demanded against his five co-defendants. They were sentenced to terms that will keep them in correctional facilities for 5 to 26 years.

According to the court, D. remotely controlled "his soldiers" using encrypted chat messaging. Those chat transcripts were obtained by the police as part of their efforts to infiltrate the customers of the Sky ECC messaging service.

For D., it is the third gunshot incident he has been linked to where an unintended target was injured or killed. In addition to directing the murder in Beuningen, D. was also convicted of an assassination attempt at a chalet park in Tienhoven in Utrecht on 4 June 2020. The reason for this shooting was the theft of a consignment of drugs. It later turned out that the wrong chalet had been shot at, and a bullet hit the shoulder of an innocent victim.

D. was also found guilty of preparatory acts for the attempted murder of Anis B. in Amsterdam, the criminal boyfriend of Ayla Mintjes (27). She was later shot dead on Maassluisstraat in Amsterdam while driving her boyfriend’s car.

The court called the methods of the convicted men unconscionable. "There has been no evidence that this was their own conflict. This is apparently their job. The messages sent show a staggering picture of how people's lives are handled: fearlessly and unscrupulously. The suspects show no regard for other people's lives in any way."

The court issued its verdict in the highly secured courtroom in Rotterdam. Only 22-year-old Jurviën M. was in attendance. He was sentenced to 20 years, close to the 22 years prosecutors recommended. His pubic hair and DNA was found on the driver's seat in the Volkswagen Transporter. According to the court, it cannot be determined with certainty whether he was one of the shooters or if he was only the vehicle’s driver.

The other men convicted in the case include Jermaine M., Jorvan B.,, Desharo W., August D., and Marcin W.