The Assassination of Hrant Dink

[Steph]

Here we go round the Mulberry bush.

Court in Istanbul released 4 of 18 suspects implicated in Hrant Dink’s murder
03.07.2007 16:27 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A court in Istanbul, which yesterday started the trial on the murder case of Hrant Dink, editor-in-chief of ‘Agos’ Armenian-Turkish bilingual, has decided to broaden the investigation to consider allegations of official negligence. After a 12-hour hearing, the court released four of the 18 suspects. The judge also decided to postpone the hearing till October 1. “Police departments of Istanbul and Trabzone are responsible for critically serious mistakes and in fact for deliberate negligence,” lawyer of the Dink Family Ergin Cinmen stated.

Two of the key suspects, Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel, claimed they worked for the security forces. Tuncel, who is suspected of masterminding the killing, reportedly told the court that he was paid by police for gathering intelligence The court decided to ask police to provide a list of Tuncel’s telephone calls. However, there has been no evidence that directly implicates any police or government official in the slaying of Hrant Dink outside his office, AP reports.

Yesterday eighteen suspects went on trial in Istanbul for the murder of Hrant Dink. Since the main culprit 17-year-old Ogun Samast is a minor, the trial is closed to the public. According to the investigation, Ogun Samast belonged to a terrorist organization. He gunned down the 53-year-old journalist in Istanbul near the editorial house of his ‘Agos’ newspaper.

[Steph]

Around thousand people gathered in front of courthouse where Hrant Dink murder case started
03.07.2007 13:51 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Around 1000 people gathered in Beşiktaş, Istanbul early in the morning near the courthouse, where the trial on the murder of Hrant Dink, Armenian-Turkish ‘Agos’ bilingual editor-in-chief started. They carried banners saying “We are all Armenians, “We are all Dinks,” and “We are all witnesses, demand justice”. Those gathered have undersigned ‘the Coordination to watch the Hrant Dink case’, Anatolia News Agency reports. Hrant Dink’s wife, Rakel Dink saluted them as she was going to the courthouse, while the people applauded her. One of activists, Tores Dinçöz said Hrant Dink was killed, “as we were not strong enough. We gathered here to prevent the blackening of truth,” Dinçöz said.

Yesterday eighteen suspects went on trial in Istanbul for the murder of Hrant Dink. Since the main culprit 17-year-old Ogun Samast is a minor, the trial is closed to the public. According to the investigation, Ogun Samast belonged to a terrorist organization. He gunned down the 53-year-old journalist in Istanbul near the editorial house of his ‘Agos’ newspaper.

[Joseph]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,493362,00.html

SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH TURKISH-ARMENIAN EDITOR ETYEN MAHCUPYAN
Dink's Murder Was 'Planned by a Bigger Network'

Etygen Mahcupyan, the editor-in-chief of the Armenian-Turkish weekly Agos, spoke to DER SPIEGEL about the trial of the alleged killers of his predecessor Hrant Dink.

Etyen Mahcupyan replaced murdered journalist Hrant Dink as editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos.

The Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was gunned down on Jan. 19 this year. Now, six months later, the trial of his alleged killer and 17 other suspects has started. The trial is being carried out behind closed doors because the accused gunman, Ogün Samast, is a minor.
Dink was hated by ultranationalists for describing the mass killing of Armenians in the early part of the 20th century as genocide. He was prosecuted for his comments under Article 301 of Turkey's penal code, which bans insults to Turkish identity.

Critics have accused the authorities of failing to act on reports of a plot to kill Dink. Two of the suspects, Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel, even claim they were working for the security forces. The current case is seen as an important test of whether the Turkish judiciary is capable of investigating claims of official negligence.

DER SPIEGEL spoke to Etyen Mahcupyan, Dink's successor as editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos about the trial.

SPIEGEL: The trial against Dink's alleged 17-year-old murderer and his accomplices has started. But now the investigation is to be continued. Were there other people involved?

Etyen Mahcupyan: This type of attack must have been prepared by a bigger network than just the gang that is currently on trial. There had to be political connections, people who pulled strings, paid money or laid the ideological groundwork. So far only two members of the nationalist Great Unity Party (BBP) have been charged.
SPIEGEL: One of the accused claims that they were controlled by a group within the police force.

Mahcupyan: A number of police officers knew what was going to happen. But they didn't prevent the murder. Were they acting of their own accord, or did someone give them orders? That is unclear.

SPIEGEL: What was the perpetrator's motive?
Mahcupyan: There is a link here between ultra-nationalism and criminal gangs. The aim was probably to cause unrest in the election year with the intention of torpedoing Turkey's chances of joining the European Union. Presumably a whole series of attacks was planned, but the public reaction was too strong to go ahead with them.

SPIEGEL: In general, politically motivated crimes are seldom solved in Turkey. Will it be different this time?

Mahcupyan: In the past the judges were usually afraid to take risks. None of them wanted to expose the links between the military, the government and the judiciary. But in this case there is the potential to really get to the bottom of things. The judges are flexible and are working with the lawyers.


SPIEGEL: You are Dink's successor as editor-in-chief at Agos. Are you and your colleagues still being threatened?
Mahcupyan: Yes, but that is the usual hatred that we have to face. The Armenian community and their patriarch often receive threats from the nationalists as well.

SPIEGEL: Dink was pulled up before judges on several occasions because of his articles. Have you also been hampered in your work?

Mahcupyan: Not at the moment, but if it were politically desired then someone could find an old article and file charges. I have already been put on trial for allegedly insulting state institutions.

Interview conducted by Annette Grossbongardt

[Joseph]

http://www.bianet.org/english/kategori/english/100940/yasin-hayals-lawyer-a-suspect-himself

Yasin Hayals Lawyer a Suspect HimselfFuat Turgut, the defence lawyer of suspect Yasin Hayal in the murder trial of journalist Hrant Dink, is himself accused of making death threats. If convicted, he would face debarment.

bia news center

10 Ağustos 2007, Cuma

Fuat Turgut, the lawyer representing suspect Yasin Hayal in the Hrant Dink murder trial, has himself become the subject of a criminal complaint. He has been accused of threatening a fellow lawyer with death.

Following the complaint of Izmir Bar Association lawyer Ismail Hakki Kücük, a case has been opened against Fuat Turgut at an Izmir magistrate criminal court. Kücük had filed a complaint at the Izmir Chief Public Prosecutor's Office on 15 December 2005.

Kücük had been representing a wholesale shoe dealer, Mustaf Özvardar, and Turgut was representing one Fethi Takes who had debts with Özvardar. Kücük claims to have been threatened with death by both Takes and his lawyer, Turgut.

Özvardar had gone to Kücük's office and said, "You are telling me to 'come and kill me'. If you want interest on this file, your children will become orphans."

At the first hearing of the Hrant Dink murder trial at the Besiktas court (Istanbul), Fuat Turgut had created tension. He had taunted the Dink family and had accused the joint attorneys of "treachery". He had shouted, "Look how many Armenians there are. You are all Armenian, you all have Armenian passports."

Should Turgut be punished, the Izmir Bar Association would bar him from his profession. (NK/EÜ/AG)

[Joseph]

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania)
August 17, 2007 Friday
SOONER EDITION

HRANT DINK, ANOTHER MARTYR FOR FREE SPEECH

TONY NORMAN


Last year, I was part of a contingent of journalism fellows who met
with Hrant Dink in his cramped office at Agos, a Turkish-Armenian
newspaper in Istanbul. When we said goodbye, we didn't know we were
bidding farewell to a brave journalist who would be assassinated by a
17-year-old Turkish nationalist.

The Knight-Wallace Fellows from University of Michigan milled on the
very same sidewalk that, almost a year later, was a crime scene.

On Jan. 19, Ogun Samast, a high school dropout from a Black Sea
fishing village, followed the outspoken commentator as he left his
office. "I approached him from behind and shot him from one meter
away," Mr. Samast reportedly said in a detailed confession that made
no concession to remorse. After Friday prayer services, Mr. Samast
considered it an act of devotion to his homeland to shoot Mr. Dink
(pronounced "deenk"), a 53-year-old father of three.

Ogun Samast's actions so mortified and shamed his devout Muslim
family that his father allegedly provided the tip that led to his
arrest days after the shooting.

When Mr. Samast was cornered by the cops at a bus station the next
day in a nearby seaside village, he was still carrying the gun
allegedly used to kill Hrant Dink.

Mr. Samast told interrogators that Mr. Dink's columns alleging
Turkey's guilt in the genocide of thousands of Armenians in 1915
infuriated him. After reading several of his articles online, Mr.
Samast decided to kill the Turkish citizen of Armenian descent for
"insulting Turkishness."

After a three-month adjournment, the trial of Mr. Samast and 17 other
conspirators will resume in October. Turkish prosecutors believe the
gunman, who is more illiterate thug than political assassin, is the
spear end of conspiracy orchestrated by ultra-nationalist Turks and
sympathetic police officers. Only eight of 18 alleged conspirators
are in custody.

Many see the upcoming trial as a forum that will pit the rule of law
in Turkey against the nation's pathological sense of patriotism and
tribal nationalism.

Complicating things is the fact that Mr. Dink had once been convicted
by a Turkish court for "insulting Turkishness" for maintaining
Turkey's guilt in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of
Armenians. He was given a suspended sentence instead of jail time.

Several well-known Turkish intellectuals and authors -- including
Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak, another
writer we met with during our trip to Istanbul -- were tried for
violating Article 301 of the Turkish penal code.

Turkey's insistence that a narrow interpretation of the Armenian
question be upheld could stall its admission into the European Union.
Ironically, Mr. Dink angered Armenians by arguing that the Armenian
question shouldn't stop Turkey from being admitted to the EU. He
believed Turkey would benefit from exposure to other democracies.

*

At last week's National Association of Black Journalists convention
in Las Vegas, presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton paid tribute to Chauncey Bailey, editor of the Oakland Post.
He was slain earlier this month by a 19-year-old handyman at an
Oakland bakery run by a Black Muslim sect. Mr. Bailey had been
investigating a story about financial chicanery at Your Black Muslim
Bakery

During one tribute, my friend Birgit Rieck, the Knight-Wallace
Fellows program administrator, asked if I had ever noticed the eerie
parallels between the Dink and Bailey murders. They were hard to
miss.

Hrant Dink, an Armenian of the Eastern Orthodox faith was murdered by
a man who claimed to be a follower of Allah but had very little
compassion in his heart.

Chauncey Bailey, a Roman Catholic, was murdered by a man who called
himself a black Muslim.

Uneducated teenage fanatics with specific grievances committed both
murders. But a larger conspiracy orchestrated by others is believed
to have put both into motion. An antagonism to press freedom and
freedom of conscience fueled by religious passion is at the root of
both assassinations.

Two societies, one Western, the other Muslim -- and both secular --
will ask their respective judicial systems to rule that the murder of
reporters is unacceptable.

Everyone has to understand that there are no infidels in the 21st
century -- only dissidents.

[Joseph]

Why does this "verdict" not surprise me?



Trabzon PD not faulty in Dink case

The investigation into whether the Police Department of Trabzon was at fault in the Hrant Dink case has been concluded with the verdict that "the officers fulfilled their duty."


The investigation into the claim the officers at the Trabzon PD did not fulfill their duties completely and therefore negliected their duties in the murder of Dink has been concluded. The resolution by the audits of the ministry of internal affairs questioned the complainants of Dink's murder claiming that the officers of the Trabzon Police Department did not fulfill their duties as they should have.

The resolution said that the officers in the Trabzon PD fulfilled their duties properly and are not at fault; in addition, it was stated the claim of there being 17 notices that Hrant Dink's life was in danger is not true.

Publish Date: 31.08.2007
Link: http://english.sabah.com.tr/A80C2429...4620FCEBD.html

[Jade]

Jade is back! - after a long period spanning last year's june exams and the summer holiday I am back ) - few things that I would like to share; during my summer holiday I had the occasion to work for the advertising agency who prepared Baskin Oran's campaign...I have contacts if anyone is interested...I also worked in a newspaper in Turkey and befriended very "interesting" people...One of them the author of a novel...His novel talks about his experiences in the prisons in Turkey...He is a journalist who is perhaps the biggest proof of Turkey's ignorance of "freedom of speech" ...The title of the novel, (not surprisingly) translates into English roughly as "Against the Silence" (perhaps someone has heard of it?) Oh and before I forget, I also befriended an Armenian girl in the agency I worked in. She was a wonderful person I just have to add) so yes, that's my little "update" for anyone interested...

[Jade]

And I am very happy to be back and will do everything I can to contribute more often...

[Alexandros]

Jade is back! - after a long period spanning last year's june exams and the summer holiday I am back ) - few things that I would like to share; during my summer holiday I had the occasion to work for the advertising agency who prepared Baskin Oran's campaign...I have contacts if anyone is interested...I also worked in a newspaper in Turkey and befriended very "interesting" people...One of them the author of a novel...His novel talks about his experiences in the prisons in Turkey...He is a journalist who is perhaps the biggest proof of Turkey's ignorance of "freedom of speech" ...The title of the novel, (not surprisingly) translates into English roughly as "Against the Silence" (perhaps someone has heard of it?) Oh and before I forget, I also befriended an Armenian girl in the agency I worked in. She was a wonderful person I just have to add) so yes, that's my little "update" for anyone interested...

Unfortunately Baskin Oran wasn`t elected to the Turkish parliament.He has the courage to talk about sensitive issues which i highly respect him for.If he would had been elected to the Turkish parliament he would have been a breath of fresh air in Turkish politics.

But at least Ufuk Uras was elected and i think-even if his party has only one seat in the Turkish parliament-he could take a stance on issues that are taboo in Turkey.Take for example the issue about the Armenian genocide which he think must be recognized.I hope that more people like Ufuk Uras will be elected to the Turkish parliament in the future.

[Joseph]

Jade is back! - after a long period spanning last year's june exams and the summer holiday I am back ) - few things that I would like to share; during my summer holiday I had the occasion to work for the advertising agency who prepared Baskin Oran's campaign...I have contacts if anyone is interested...I also worked in a newspaper in Turkey and befriended very "interesting" people...One of them the author of a novel...His novel talks about his experiences in the prisons in Turkey...He is a journalist who is perhaps the biggest proof of Turkey's ignorance of "freedom of speech" ...The title of the novel, (not surprisingly) translates into English roughly as "Against the Silence" (perhaps someone has heard of it?) Oh and before I forget, I also befriended an Armenian girl in the agency I worked in. She was a wonderful person I just have to add) so yes, that's my little "update" for anyone interested...

Sounds like you had a fantastic summer, Jade. In addition to your work, it sounds like you had some fun too. We'd love to hear more about your experiences related to Baskin Orans campaign, your experiences, etc.
Welcome back.