BosNewsLife, Hungary
Jan 21 2007

Turkey Teenager "Confesses" To Killing Armenian Journalist
Sunday, 21 January 2007 (2 hours ago)
By BosNewsLife News Center

Suspect was identified in camera footage. ISTANBUL, TURKEY

(BosNewsLife)– A teenager suspected of killing Turkish-Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink has confessed to the murder, police officials
said Sunday, January 21.

Ogun Samast, 17, told police he had read on the Internet that Dink
had said "Turkish blood was dirty" so he had decided to kill him.
Istanbul governor Muammer Guler said police captured the boy late on
Saturday on a bus in Samsun still carrying the gun allegedly used in
the murder.

The teenager reportedly said he did not regret the killing. Samast
was identified after his father informed authorities that the suspect
shown on television was his son, officials added.

The police investigation is continuing as six other people are also
being held. Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan said he was pleased
the suspect had been brought into police custody in such a short
time.

The killing has shocked people across the country. "I feel happy the
murderer has been saptured as much as I feel sad at Hrant Dink’s
death," a man in Ankara said in television footage aired by Euronews
Television.

A member of Istanbul’s small Turkish-Armenian community said: "Our
pain is so great ecause Hrant meant something to us. We Turkish
Armenians living here are really scared by the assassination and we
don’t know how this fear will go away."

MASSACRE

Dink, 53, wrote about the alleged massacre of up to 1.5 million
Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Christians carried out by Turkish
Ottoman forces in the 1915-1917 period. Turkey’s government has
denied the figure or the involvement of Turkish forces in mass
killings. It says the events did not constitute genocide and claims
that no more than 300,000 Armenians perished at the time.

Turkey has said that most Armenians died from hunger and disease
after they were forcibly deported from eastern Turkey for having
collaborated with invading Russian forces in the last days of the
Ottoman Empire.

Dink was given a six-month suspended sentence in October 2005 after
writing about especially the killings of Armenians and describing the
events as "genocide". In his last article, he referred to the
sentencing saying that when "the decision came out" his "hopes were
crushed."

>From then on, he added, he was "in the most distressed situation a
person" could possibly be in. "The judge had made a decision in the
name of the "Turkish nation" and had it legally registered that I had
"denigrated Turkishness." I could have coped with anything but this,"
he wrote.

TURKISHNESS

The laws on Turkishness have also encouraged attacks against
Christian leaders and missionaries, churches and human rights groups
say. Just before he died, Dink made clear he had received death
threats. "The memory of my computer is filled with angry, threatening
lines sent by citizens from this sector… How real are these
threats? To be honest, it is impossible for me to know for sure."

However the journalist said he and his family decided to stay in
Turkey to continue what they saw as their fight for justice.

"2007 will probably be an even harder year for me," he predicted.
"The court cases will continue, new ones will be initiated and God
knows what kind of additional injustices I will have to face. I may
see myself as frightened as a pigeon, but I know that in this country
people do not touch pigeons. Pigeons can live in cities, even in
crowds. A little scared perhaps, but free."

On Sunday, January 21, flowers and candles were seen in the street in
Istanbul where he was eventually gunned-down. (With BosNewsLife Chief
International Correspondent Stefan J. Bos).