Turkish police officer 'with Maserati' found dead in his car after serious allegations

Turkish police officer Hüseyin Tayfun Üçgül was found dead in his car in the western Muğla province. Last month, Üçgül was suspended from duty after breaking a lawyer’s leg during a traffic argument while driving a Maserati car, raising questions of how the officer acquired a Maserati car with a police salary.

Wednesday July 12 2023 08:12 am

Duvar English

Turkish police officer Hüseyin Tayfun Üçgül on July 11 was found dead in his car in the Aegean province of Muğla’s Ortaca district. The 39-year-old Üçgül was killed by a gunshot to the head, increasing suspicions of suicide.

Üçgül’s death came after he was suspended from duty after breaking a lawyer’s leg while driving a Maserati car.

Üçgül was accused of breaking the leg of lawyer Fatih Uzun, with whom he had an argument in traffic on April 22, 2023 on the İzmir-Istanbul Highway. After the incident, an administrative investigation was initiated into Üçgül in June and he was suspended from duty in the Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime Branch.

Investigators have started to examine both the incident on the highway and the property of the police since it raised questions of how the officer acquired a Maserati car with a police salary.

It had come into light that the police officer’s wife Özlem Üçgül owned the Maserati car.

After the public attention, Özlem Üçgül said she owns a boutique, restaurant, and an account on social media that sells bags and tea as her sources of income, adding “what's mine is my husband’s.”

Üçgül’s lawyer Mehmet Yiğit Manav also denied the allegations that the officer is being investigated for “migrant smuggling,” Demirören News Agency reported on June 29.

In the indictment prepared regarding the incident in traffic, the prosecutor demanded Üçgül be tried on the charges of "public insult" and "intentional injury" and be sentenced to six years and 10 months in prison.

Topics police Maserati Turkish police