Willem Endstra was an indestructible optimist. A drawn-out conflict with two leading figures from the underworld - Willem Holleeder and John Mieremet - had brought him to the brink of financial ruin. But on Monday, May 17th, 2004 the 51-year-old real estate baron was in his office on the Apollolaan finalize a real estate deal. "There's money coming back" Anderson said, "it's all good."
This time it was premature optimism. That Monday was Wim Endstra liquidated at ten past twelve - like a common criminal. According to witnesses gave the gunman, dressed in a red jacket, Endstra close a final shot.
Although Endstra for years was known as the "banker of the underworld", came the liquidation as a surprise. Only Endstra told intimates that he had big problems with Holleeder "If I am killed, Holleeder has done," he told his confidants.
Endstra felt so cornered him in the year before his death, often talked to the police about threat and extortion. Holleeder while working as Endstra along with two other criminals: Dino S. and in 2011 shot Stanley Hillis. They were the principals? And who carried out that mission?
Monday begins the trial against three suspects who carried out according to the prosecution, the liquidation of Endstra. It involves two Turkish cousins who were born in Alkmaar: N. and Ali Özgür C. Their boss was in accordance with justice Ziya G., who presumably hiding in Turkey. He is being tried in absentia.
The three are suspected of complicity in the murder of Endstra and attempted murder of a business partner who was shot in the leg. Justice Holleeder sees as the principal of the murder of Endstra. However, he is prosecuted in a separate criminal case.
The first concrete indication that the three Turkish defendants and Willem Holleeder were involved in the murder of Endstra came in 2005, when reported a source from the criminal to the police that Willem Holleeder Ziya G. had approached to liquidate Endstra.
Striking detail of that message: The perpetrators would have used a blue Alfa Romeo. What no one could know then was that the police in August 2004 had indeed found a stolen blue Alfa Romeo. Therein lay the murder weapon and a red jacket on which DNA material was found which was also on the shell casings. Earlier, even though evidence was found in a stolen red Mercedes bus which was found several days after the murder of Endstra near his office.
All of this evidence was able to link the police in 2006 Ziya G. when he enlisted in the spring to the police with a request. He wanted to have the keys of a car from a friend who was arrested after a brawl. In that car two weapons were found. The weapons were arrested friend Ziya G .: Ozgur C. Much more interesting was that the fingerprint of Özgür C. was found on a parking ticket which was in the red Mercedes bus and was purchased on May 17, 2004 at 9:10 pm.
This bus was, as suspected, the police used on the morning of the murder as a base. After Ozgur C. came the third suspect in the picture: N. Ali, a cousin of Özgür and a gifted musician. The two men were arrested in December 2006. Ziya G. escaped the dance because he stayed in Turkey. Despite many indications justice was not around the case and should be released the two cousins Alkmaar.
When no one was expecting it anymore, justice was still the shooter by sight. The breakthrough came in 2011 when the German police identified the international criminal Namik Abbasov persisted for illegal possession of weapons. Its DNA was consistent with the DNA on the murder weapon, shell casings and the red coat.
When Abbasov end of 2011 was arrested in Poland, the police found on his computer photos to himself and Ziya G. After his extradition to the Netherlands, the Russian silent during interrogation, but during breaks he allowed occasional loose. He told a jailer that his lawyer was paid for by the group around Holleeder.
This law not only did the performers in the picture but also the client: Willem Holleeder, the man who was convicted in 2007 for the extortion of Wim Endstra. But the statements by Abbasov can not be checked: in April 2012 he died in his cell at the effects of a stroke.
Again it seemed the thing to pieces but in the summer of 2012 enlisted a new witness: HIDR K., been a Turkish criminal who was a member of the group around Ziya G. However, it took two years before his statement to the file was added by demands HIDR K. said in exchange for his testimony. He felt threatened and wanted to cooperate only if he received money to protect themselves.
The end of 2014 did that deal around. HIDR K. asserts that Holleeder had contact with Ziya G. and Endstra's killing was ordered by the triumvirate that real estate baron himself also mentioned: Holleeder, Hillis and Dino S.
Less useful is the proposition of K. HIDR that the fatal shots were fired not by the Russian Abbasov but by another Turkish criminal who belonged to the group of Ziya G.. For this reason HIDR K. described by the lawyers of the accused as a "fantasist".
Or the judge finds that will appear in the coming months. At this point, the trial of three Turkish defendants a test case for the thesis of Wim Endstra: "If I am killed, then Holleeder did it." Are the three Turkish defendants convicted than the echo of Endstra's words will sound louder in the Holleeder criminal case against himself.
nrc.nl/ Jan Meeus / Photo Maurice Boyer / NRC
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