An international manhunt is underway to find a gang leader thought to be behind the murder of a man who was linked to the shooting of a nine-year-old girl as she dined in a north London restaurant. In late May 2024, the youngster was eating with her family at Evin Restaurant in Dalston when a gunman riding a stolen motorbike fired five shots as families dived for cover under tables. The little girl may not be able to talk again, her family previously said.

But now a search for the killer of north London crime boss, Izzet Eren, is underway after he was shot and killed sitting outside a cafe in Chisinau, Moldova last summer. It’s believed the young girl may have been in the crossfire of a gang – Eren was reportedly a senior member of the North London gang ‘Tottenham Turks’. Rival crime boss Kemal Armagan, of the ‘Hackney Bombers’, is thought to be tied to his Eren’s murder.

The two gangs have been embroiled in a deadly war since 2009. It’s believed Eren was shooting at the restaurant to target a member of the Hackney Bombers, but accidentally struck the young girl. His murder in broad daylight in Moldova just weeks later was ‘carefully planned’, prosecutor Victor Furtuna told the Mirror. The gunman behind Eren’s murder allegedly flew to Moldova two weeks before the murder, monitoring their target before ultimately killing him and fleeing across the Romanian border.

Days after the nine-year-old girl was shot in London, local residents raised concerns that the crime could have been related to gang violence. To get the latest news from the capital visit Metro's London news hub. One of the men injured in the attack said to be the real target of the violence, said he wished he’d been shot in the head instead of the little girl. Beytullah Gunduz, 37, who has links to the Turkish criminal world was eating at the Evin restaurant in Dalston, east London.

He left for just 15 minutes and came back to find three of his friends with gunshot wounds a young girl, nine, and completely unrelated to the incident, shot in the head. Gunduz was a victim of a previous attack when he was shot in the neck by a rival gang the Tottenham Turks. He himself has been cleared of organising a hit for his gang the Hackney Turks. The Times reports he told a friend ‘That little girl is an innocent person’.

He said: ‘If these people knew I was there why didn’t they wait until I left and walked around the corner? We can be criminals but this girl wasn’t, she didn’t do anything wrong. ‘It is killing me inside. The waiting to know if she is going to live is too much – I am heartbroken. I wish I was still sitting there and the bullet had gone in my head.’. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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