Trabzon circle of suspects widens; Ogun Samast says "I am sorry I killed him"

Hurriyet, Turkey
Jan 24 2007

17 year old Trabzon resident Ogun Samast, who has admitted to shooting
and killing journalist Hrant Dink in the Istanbul district of Sisli,
ended his 8 pages of testimony to prosecutors yesterday with the words
"I am very sorry that I killed Hrant Dink." Samast, who was first
observed by psychologists, went before the prosecutors to give his
version of the events surrounding the Friday afternoon murder.

Samast is not the only person in custody for the murder of Hrant Dink
at this point; Trabzon resident Yasin Hayal, who is thought to have
given Samast the gun and the orders to kill the Armenian journalist,
is also in police custody currently, as is Black Sea Technical
University student Erhan Tuncel, who is thought to be one of the
possible masterminds behind the plans. There are also several other
young men being questioned by the police, several of whom appear to
be linked with Tuncel, Hayal, and Samast.

While investigating the murder of Hrant Dink, the police have also
apparently stumbled upon important clues to last year’s murder of
the Italian priest, Andrea Santoro, which took place in Trabzon. Some
of the suspects in Dink’s murder have admitted to links to Santoro’s
killer.