Dalston love triangle killing: Jealous husband Huseyin Akkoyun guilty of Mehmet Degerli manslaughter

Huseyin Akkoyun (Image: police)

Huseyin Akkoyun, 47, of no fixed abode, was acquitted of murdering Mehmet Degerli, whose body was discovered by a passer-by in a car park in Sandringham Road on June 8 last year, but found guilty of the lesser charge this afternoon.

His 49-year-old victim had been strangled and run over by a car.

Akkoyun’s nephew, Mustafa Alparslan, 21, of Remington Road, Stoke Newington, who was also on trial for murder, has been found not guilty by jurors, who had been deliberating since Monday.

During the four-week trial, jurors heard how Akkoyun’s wife Semra Yumak had begun seeing their family friend of 20 years, Mr Degerli, in private, and that their friendship had turned into an affair.

During the trial it emerged Akkoyun had hidden recording devices in the bedroom and lounge of his wife’s home in Sandringham Road.

Jurors heard how he had been listening to Ms Yumak’s conversations through what he called a “security system”, which he dialled into on his mobile phone.

Police discovered he had merely installed recording devices behind his wife’s plug sockets – without her knowledge.

Akkoyun had claimed in evidence that Mr Degerli, his former friend, had pulled a knife, leading the pair to fight in the car the pair were both travelling in. He denied harming the man and said he did not know how he had died.

Jurors heard Ms Yumak, who he had married 16 years earlier in an arranged marriage which had initially been “very nice”, had booted Akkoyun out of the house in April.

Through a Turkish interpreter, he told jurors he had concerns she was going out and “abandoning” their four children – 12-year old twin sons, a 15-year old son and 10-year old daughter – home alone.

On the night in question, the court heard he had wanted to use a camcorder to record evidence of his wife leaving them alone, to give him ammunition to claim custody of the family.

He decided to call his nephew Mr Alparslan so they could use his mother’s Colt car as a base – to ensure Ms Yumak would not spot him.

But when Ms Yumak and Mr Degerli returned, Akkoyun fumbled trying to switch on the camcorder – and when Ms Yumak drove off after about 20 seconds, he simply jumped out of the car and ran after her Hyundai, it was said.

Moments later Mr Alparslan claimed he saw Mr Degerli and Akkoyun walking back towards his car, and Akkoyun told him to drive off after they got in the back seats.

He described how the pair started fighting in the back of the car and he pulled over in Downham Road, Haggerston, and shouted at them to stop.

He then decided to drive them back to Sandringham Road where he dropped them off and phoned his mum to say what had happened.

He had wanted to call the police, he said, but she advised him not to.

“I did not lay a hand on either of them two other than to separate them,” he told jurors.

“Would you have ever left home that night if you knew what was to happen?” asked Mr Sheridan.

“Definitely no,” he replied. “That’s why he probably never mentioned it to me. If he knew there was to be a fight I’d have told my mum.”

Akkoyun claimed the last time he saw Mr Degerli, his nose was bleeding, but he “was on his feet”, walking to his car.

But when Mr Degerli was found at 1am by a passer-by he had wounds to his scalp, and oddly one of his shoes and one of his socks were missing – which have never been recovered despite extensive police searches.

Blood was “trailing” from his head, and there was bruising across his eyes and nose, as well as across his back with what looked like “gravel rash”, Prosecutor Peter Finnigan said at the opening of the trial.

A pathologist who carried out a post-mortem on the body found he had multiple fractures to his ribs and shoulder blades. A small bone in his neck by his larynx had also been fractured, and this along with bruising of his neck and eye led them to conclude his neck had been compressed - possibly by some sort of ligature, causing asphyxia.

They estimate sustained pressure was applied to his neck for 20 to 30 seconds, which could have rendered him unconscious.

Injuries to his back were “so severe” the pathologist formed a view “they were consistent with him having been run over by the tyre of [a] vehicle”.

Akkoyun will be sentenced for manslaughter tomorrow.