Five Turks charged in murder of editor

Dominican Today, Dominican Republic
Jan 25 2007

Istanbul.- A Turkish prosecutor has said five people were charged in
the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, Turkish media
reported on Thursday.

Istanbul’s chief prosecutor Aykut Cengiz Engin charged Ogun Samast, a
17-year-old unemployed man from the Black Sea coast, with premeditated
murder and membership of an armed group.

Four others were charged with forming an armed organization and
incitement to murder.

Samast, who is reported to have been close to an ultranationalist
group in his home town Trabzon, has admitted to shooting Dink in
daylight as he left his newspaper Agos in Istanbul last Friday.

The murder brought 100,000 mourners to Istanbul’s streets for Dink’s
funeral on Tuesday and has reignited debate about hardline nationalism
in a country seeking European Union membership.

"From the quality and the nature of the crimes attributed to the
suspects it is clear the result emerges that they formed an armed
group," Engin told reporters late on Wednesday in comments reported
by the NTV Web site.

Engin said the fact that the suspects were remanded in custody did not
mean that a case would be opened soon. Prosecutors will now prepare
an indictment against the suspects.

Samast has confessed to killing Dink for "insulting" Turks in his
writings and statements on the massacres of Armenians during World
War One – a highly sensitive issue in Turkey.

Yasin Hayal, a known nationalist militant, has admitted to inciting
his friend Samast to kill Dink, the police said.

Hayal served 11 months in jail for the 2004 bombing of a McDonald’s
restaurant in Trabzon.

Dink, who worked for reconciliation between Christian Armenians and
Muslim Turks, had been prosecuted for his views on the massacres of
Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.

He was among intellectuals, including Nobel Literature Prize winner
Orhan Pamuk, who have been prosecuted under laws restricting freedom
of expression in Turkey.