Badr was in the car with his wife yesterday when he saw on social media what had happened at McDonald’s. At first, there was certainly no reason for him to think that something was wrong with his family. “I thought, now it’s getting close. Nothing else.”
Criminal Tires
But when they read in a message that it was a former owner of Grillroom Sahara, he knew something was wrong. He drove to McDonald’s with other family members. “We are still in shock. Hüseyin had five children and two grandchildren, Ali three children and four grandchildren. It is really terrible.”
Emergency services were quickly on the spot, but help was no longer of any avail. Images show that the police have cordoned off the area around the restaurant and are investigating.
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The worst thing for the family is that soon after the death of his father-in-law and his brother, stories came out about the criminal environment in which Ali might have been. According to those stories, Ali would have a lot of debts, also with criminal contacts. He would also deal with acquaintances of Huseyin Baybasin, who was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Ali would have been lured to McDonald’s. That brother Hüseyin would also die in the attack would have been seen as so-called ‘collateral damage’.
‘Ali was in the Netherlands for two weeks’
The family dismisses the stories about Ali’s criminal environment as nonsense. “We are so shocked by that,” says Badr. “They are the two sweetest men in the world.”
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“Hüseyin is a social worker and is available to everyone. Ali has worked in the hospitality industry for forty years and is now enjoying his retirement in Turkey. He has now been in the Netherlands for two weeks to visit his family. No one in the family has ever seen conflict. Why criminal ties?”
Hüseyin’s son-in-law also finds it bizarre that the incident took place in McDonald’s. “Ali once started as a manager in a McDonald’s in Zwolle.”
‘Don’t know in which corner to look’
What does frighten the family is that the action in the McDonald’s was indeed aimed at his family. At least so it seems. “I put my hand on my heart: we really don’t know where to look.”
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The past day was one big shock. And with all that news about criminal ties, there’s certainly no room for normal grieving. “We have been assigned two family detectives. We support the police investigation, but they are not letting go either. We know nothing.”
Funeral and mourning process
In the coming days, it’s mostly a matter of waiting. Wait for the police to finish the investigation and release the bodies. “We have to arrange everything for the funeral. After that it will probably be a lot quieter and there is room for the grieving process.”
But only then does the pain come, Badr knows. “Because then the houses are suddenly empty…”
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