Hakan Aradas shot dead outside café Ülfet 2 on Admiraal de Ruijterweg

Hakan Aradas (44) was a maintenance technician who lived in Haarlem with his wife and their three children. On the night of Friday 7 to Saturday 8 October 2016 he went out in Amsterdam with two friends. After three in the morning they wanted to go to a Turkish café near Mercatorplein, but it had just closed. A Turkish-speaking man on a scooter pointed them to an alternative that was still open: the café-bar Ülfet 2, on the corner of Admiraal de Ruijterweg and Jan Evertsenstraat. He even rode along with them. While one of the friends parked the car, Aradas fell into conversation outside with a man probably of Moroccan descent, who called himself Youssef. A glass fell to the ground, and an argument grew out of it. Camera footage showed how quickly it then escalated: Aradas was kicked and beaten by several men. When one of his friends came to his aid, one of the men drew a firearm and fired. That friend was hit and fled. As bystanders ran off in panic, the gunman turned the weapon on Aradas himself. Aradas was hit several times and was resuscitated in the middle of the street at around 03:45, but he died of his injuries. Police stressed that Aradas and his friends had no criminal background and that this was not a planned contract killing: the conflict arose on the spot, between people who had met for the first time that night. What exactly the argument was about has never been established, and no motive was ever found. A composite sketch of the gunman was circulated. He was said to be between 20 and 30 years old and 1.70 to 1.80 metres tall, wearing a cap or hood, a dark hip-length jacket, jeans and dark shoes with light soles. The Public Prosecution Service first offered 15,000 euros for the decisive tip; that reward was later raised to 20,000. In May 2017 police concluded that the gunman probably lived not far from the scene. A neighbourhood campaign followed around Witte de Withplein, with flyers handed out in several languages and footage from the case shown, in the hope that local residents knew more. The campaign produced several tips, but no identification. On 30 June 2019 the case returned to the television programme Opsporing Verzocht, now with a nickname: the gunman was said to be known as Snottie. The investigation also turned up the nicknames Appie, Chucky and Mouse — Appie could be seen on camera footage fleeing from the gunman, and was said to associate with men called Chucky and Mouse. Despite the camera footage, the composite sketch, the nicknames, the neighbourhood campaign and the reward, the gunman has never been conclusively identified. Nearly ten years after the shooting the case remains unsolved.