APPEALS COURT QUASHES DINK VERDICT

BÝA, Turkey
May 4 2006

Court of Appeals overrules verdict deferring 6 months jail term for
bilingual Armenian Turkish Agos newspaper editor Hrank Dink.

Journalist-writer may be retried on charges of insulting Turkish
identity.

BÝA (Ankara) – The Court of Appeals has quashed a verdict deferring
a 6 months jail sentence for Hrant Dink, editor of the bilingual
Armenian Turkish “Agos” newspaper convicted originally for “insulting
Turkish identity”.

The 9th Department of the Appeals Court on Wednesday cited
“procedural deficiencies” in the original sentence as reason to
overrule the verdict, pointing out that Dink’s remarks “The poisoned
blood that will spill from Turks will be replaced by noble blood of
the Armenians who will create Armenia” constituted the offence of
“insulting Turkish identity”.

The decision said Dink’s remarks did not fall under the scope of the
freedom of expression as defined by the European Convention on Human
Rights and disagreed with the Court of Appeals Chief Prosecutor’s
previous evaluation that a local court verdict against Dink should
be overruled on grounds that the physical and moral conditions of an
offence had not taken place.

The court also found a procedural flaw in the Sisli 2nd Court of
First Instance trial of Dink where lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz and his
colleagues were not accepted by the court as complainants as they were
not directly affected by the offence. It also cited these individuals
being paid representation fees as part of its decision to overrule
the verdict.

Following this decision the case file is to be submitted to the Court
of Appeals Chief Prosecutor’s office. If the Chief Prosecutor’s Office
does not appeal against the decision, the case will be re-sent to a
local court where Dink is to be retried. If the decision is appealed,
the case file will then be submitted for a decision to the General
Commission of the Council of State.

–Boundary_(ID_Jz2AzFbbLiSd2N7Wrzkr0w)–