Roj TV, Brussels,
25 Jan 2007

Turkey: Kurdish TV notes efforts to give lighter sentences to Dink murderers

[Announcer-read report over video] Ogun Samast who assassinated Armenian
journalist and author Hrant Dink and the other suspects, Yasin Hayal, Ersin
Yolcu, Zeynel Abidin, Yavuz and Ahmet Iskender, were arrested and sent to
prison yesterday.
The suspects were found guilty of belonging to a criminal gang, of murder,
and of using an unlicensed weapon.
The prosecutor and the judge who decided on their arrest did not consider
the murder a terrorist act and they did not assess the suspects as members
of an armed terrorist organization.
In other words, the murder committed by Ogun Samast and by the other
suspects who encouraged him to carry it out is being considered as a simple
organized gang crime.
As a result, the prosecutor can ask for a lighter sentence. Furthermore, the
suspects will be tried in a regular criminal court, rather than in the
criminal courts that have replaced the State Security Courts and that have
special powers.
The suspects will also be able to benefit from the clause on effective
repentance. [passage omitted on reactions to the murder]