NTV MSNBC, Turkey
Jan 22 2007

Suspect confesses to killing Turkish-Armenian journalist

Dink will be laid to rest on Tuesday.

NTV
Guncelleme: 16:31 TSÝ 22 Ocak 2007 PazartesiISTANBUL – Turkish police
now have eight people in custody, including the suspected gunman,
believed involved in Friday’s murder of prominent Turkish-Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink, though later releasing three after
questioning.

Aykut Cengiz Engin, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor said Sunday
another three persons had been detained in the Black Sea city of
Trabzon earlier that day. A further person was taken into custody
early Monday.

Also on Sunday, Ogun Samast, the 17 year old Trabzon youth accused of
carrying out the shooting of Dink outside his Istanbul office was
brought to Istanbul from Samsun on the Black Sea, where he had been
arrested. Samast had been identified by his father, who informed
police after seeing film footage of the suspect fleeing the scene of
the killing.

According to Turkish authorities, Samast has confessed to the killing
of Dink, a leading human rights and freedom of speech activist.

Dink had often incurred the wrath of Turkish right wing groups by
campaigning for increased democracy in Turkey as well as
rapproachment with Armenia.

In 2006, a Turkish Court of Appeals upheld a six month suspended
sentence handed down to Dink on the charge of "insulting Turkish
identity". The charge stemmed from an article he wrote saying that
Armenian nationalists had the ideal of ethnic purity without Turkish
blood. Dink denied there was any insult implied in the article.
Engin said that an official organised crimes unit will conduct the
investigation into Dink’s killing.

–Boundary_(ID_JTCSJG5x0HX/OKlCOWY7qQ)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress