Ramadan Güney

Ramadan Güney (18 February 19322 November 2006) was a British-Turkish Cypriot businessman and politician. He was the owner of Brookwood Cemetery, the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom, with the aim of establishing a Turkish cemetery. Güney was also the founder and chairman of the UK Turkish Islamic Trust and had established the first Turkish mosque in London, Shacklewell Lane Mosque, in 1977.

He was also a founding member of the VOLKAN organisation in Cyprus, established in the 1950s as part of the struggle against the Greek Cypriot nationalists, EOKA. He was in later years a Member of Parliament and presidential candidate in Northern Cyprus.

Life

Güney was born in Paphos, Cyprus in 1932 to Turkish Cypriot parents. In 1977 he helped found and run the first Turkish Cypriot mosque in London, called the Shacklewell Lane Mosque, and worked on a variety of social and community projects, arising from his work with the UK Turkish Islamic Centre. who was accused and eventually convicted of theft in his role as the chief executive of Polly Peck, a British textile company. Nadir eventually fled, but the courts ruled that Güney was not liable to pay the £1m because bail had not technically been renewed; it also turned out that Güney had warned the Serious Fraud Office in advance of his concerns that Nadir might flee. They had two sons and four daughters from this marriage. In 2011, the inheritance of the cemetery was successfully challenged by Diane Holliday and her adult son from a previous marriage, Kevin.