Mehmet Degerli killing: Murder accused ‘was spying on his estranged wife with plug socket recording device’

The car park in Cromer Terrace and Sandringham Road. Picture: Polly Hancock (Image: Archant)

Huseyin Akkoyun, 47, of no fixed address, and his nephew, Mustafa Alparslan, 21, of Remington Road, Stoke Newington, are accused of strangling and running over Mehmet Degerli, whose body was found in the early hours of June 8 in a small car park in Sandringham Road, Dalston. Both deny murder.

Giving evidence last week, Akkoyun claimed he had heard his sister-in-law Serap, whose surname was not disclosed, say his wife Semra Yumak had hired a hitman to beat him up.

Jurors at Southwark Crown Court heard he had been listening to the conversation through what he called a “security system”, which he dialled into on his mobile phone.

But when detectives visited Mrs Yumak’s home at the weekend to play her the recording in question, she expressed concern to detectives that her husband or his family could still be spying on her, it was said, and she asked them to help recover the recording equipment.

Jurors were told how one police officer phoned into the “security system” number found on Akkoyun’s phone records while the other walked around the house talking.

They realised his voice became louder in the bedroom and found a recording device with an sim card inserted inside it hidden behind a plug socket, and another in the living room.

Brothers Tolgahan and Mustafa Alparslan deny any knowledge their uncle, Akkoyun, was spying on Mrs Yumak – but described how he would sit for “long periods of time with his earphones on”.

Tolgahan Alparslan – the brother of the younger defendant – had been asked to track down the recording in question by his uncle’s defence team last week. Giving evidence on Monday morning, he told jurors he had downloaded Akkoyun’s recordings as a favour in May “because [Akkoyun’s] iPhone storage was full”.

He described how after 10 hours listening to the recordings he managed to find the one in question – which Akkoyun claimed was proof his wife had hired a hitman to get him.

Two translators were tasked with deciphering the two-and-a-half-minute conversation in Turkish between Mrs Yumak and her sister, which was played to the jury yesterday in court.

The first, who works as a court interpreter, described how he had listened to the “mostly inaudible” conversation about 60 or 70 times, and that to describe it as “bad quality” was “an understatement”.

One of the phrases could have meant “for him or her or it to die” he said – but it could also have meant “I s**t on my hand”.

“It sounded like they were gossiping,” he said. “The word ‘money’ and ‘interest’ were raised several times. The difficulty was when I tried to make sense of the sentences.”

The second interpreter, employed by the Met, offered up two further possible interpretations - “I s**t in his hand” or “I s**t in his house”, and thought the conversation started with one of the women saying they had been “ironing”.

Mrs Yumak told jurors she recognised her sister’s voice but not her own, and could not recall the conversation.

The trial continues.