Teenager charged with Dink murder

BBC
Wednesday, 24 January 2007, 22:45 GMT

Turkish prosecutors have charged a teenager with murdering prominent
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.

Ogun Samast, 17, also faces charges of being a member of an armed gang –
along with four other detained suspects.

Dink, 53, was gunned down outside his newspaper’s office in Istanbul last
week. His murder has triggered anger and shock across Turkey.

Dink had written controversial articles about the Armenian "genocide" in
1915 in Turkey, a claim denied by Ankara.

Mr Samast was jailed pending trial on charges of premeditated murder,
membership in an armed gang and illegal possession of firearms, Istanbul’s
prosecutor Aykut Cengiz Engin said.

Four other suspects were charged with involvement in Dink’s murder and
membership in the gang.

Among them is Yasin Hayal, who has reportedly confessed to inciting the
killing and providing Mr Samast with the gun and money.

The charges were brought at the end of the legal four-day detention period.

The date of the trial is yet to be set.

‘Voice of Armenians’

Thousands of people attended Dink’s funeral in Istanbul on Wednesday.

Hrant Dink’s funeral became an extraordinary show of unity
As the editor of bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, Dink was a
well-known public figure in Turkey.

His articles about the alleged mass killings of Armenians by Turks at the
beginning of the 20th Century had sparked huge controversy in the country on a
number of occasions.

In October 2005, Dink was given a six-month suspended sentence under a
controversial law against insulting "Turkishness".

He had reportedly received threats from nationalists, who viewed him as a
traitor.

Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died or were driven out of Turkey in
1915, in what many Armenians say was genocide.

Turkey admits that many Armenians were killed but it denies any genocide,
saying the deaths happened during widespread fighting in World War I.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress