Middle East Times, Egypt
Jan 22 2007
Turkey probes ultranationalists in journalist murder
January 22, 2007
Photo: MURDER SUSPECT: Ogun Samast (L), the suspected killer of
prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, is escorted by an
officer as he leaves the police headquarters in Samsun, late January
20.
(REUTERS)
ISTANBUL — Turkish police Monday focused their investigation into
the murder of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink on alleged links
between the prime suspect and an ultranationalist group.
"We are looking into the political aspect of the murder and possible
links with illegal organizations," Istanbul police chief Celalettin
Cerrah told the Anatolia news agency. "The suspect was influenced by
news articles he read" about Dink, he added.
A prosecutor said Sunday that the suspect, 17-year-old Ogun Samast,
had confessed to Friday’s murder and newspapers quoted the teenager
as telling police that he shot Dink because the journalist insulted
the Turkish nation.
Dink, 52, was a taboo-breaking critic of the official line on the
1915-17 Ottoman Empire massacre of Armenians, which he labeled as
genocide, and was given a suspended six-month jail sentence last year
for "insulting Turkishness."
Nationalists branded him a "traitor" and Dink wrote in recent
articles in his weekly newspaper Agos that he had received threats.
Quoting sources close to the investigation, newspapers Monday said
that police were probing links between Samast and a small,
ultranationalist group in his hometown, Trabzon, on the Black Sea
Coast.
Samast told police that he was told to kill Dink by a friend, Yasin
Hayal, who spent 11 months in jail for a 2004 bomb attack against a
McDonald’s restaurant in Trabzon.
"Yasin told me to shoot Dink. He gave me the gun. So I did," the
mass-circulation Hurriyet newspaper quoted the teenager as saying.
Turkish newspapers described Hayal, who is also in police custody, as
an "older brother" figure who frequently met youngsters in the area
and influenced them with his ultranationalist views.
Hurriyet said that Samast, an unemployed secondary school graduate,
was among 10 youths aged 15 to 17 whom Hayal had last year trained to
handle and shoot small arms in order to assassinate Dink.
"I was chosen because I was the best shot and the fastest runner,"
the daily Vatan quoted Samast as telling police.
Friends described Samast, who played football for an amateur team in
Trabzon, as an introvert who frequented Internet cafes but who was
also aggressive.
His mother, Havva Samast, said Monday that she believed that her son
was a mere tool.
"He is not a person who could do this on his own," she said in
remarks broadcast on the NTV news channel. "Someone used him."
Apart from Samast and Hayal, police are questioning six other
suspects in connection with the killing.
Police conducted a re-enactment under heavy security of the murder
with Samast late Sunday, which saw passers-by booing the teenager and
calling him a "disgrace."
Showing no remorse, Samast reportedly told police that he first tried
to meet Dink in his office but was not allowed in by suspicious
staff.
He said that he waited in the street until Dink returned from a
nearby bank.
"I approached him from behind and fired shot after shot," Samast was
quoted by the liberal Vatan newspaper as saying.
Dink died instantly after being shot three times in the head and
neck.
Samast’s testimony turned the spotlight on Trabzon, a Black Sea port
of 1 million and a hot-bed of nationalism, which hit the headlines in
February 2006 with the murder of an Italian Catholic priest by a
16-year-old boy.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday that police
would look into possible links between Dink’s killing and that of the
priest.
Dink had gained respect in Turkey as a sincere activist for
Turkish-Armenian reconciliation and for free speech; he also
denounced Armenian radicalism and, most recently, branded as "idiocy"
a French bill making the denial of an Armenian "genocide" a jailable
offense.
Dink will be buried Tuesday at an Armenian cemetery in Istanbul after
a ceremony in front of the Agos offices and a religious service at
the Armenian patriarchate.
A Turkish diplomat said Monday that Ankara had invited prominent
Armenian religious leaders from around the world to attend the
funeral.
Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, Primate of the Eastern Diocese of the
Armenian Church of America, has already arrived in Istanbul, Anatolia
reported. (AFP)