OFFICER SUSPENDED IN DINK PROBE
By Sarah Rainsford
BBC News, Istanbul
ope/6335633.stm
Published: 2007/02/06 14:58:37 GMT
A senior Turkish policeman has been suspended amid allegations police
had advance warning of the murder of ethnic Armenian journalist
Hrant Dink.
Ten officers and paramilitary policemen have already been suspended
in the Black Sea city of Samsun.
They were suspended after video images were leaked to the press
showing officers posing with a teenager who confessed to the murder.
Mr Dink was shot outside his newspaper office on 19 January.
Informer’s ‘tip-off’
The inquiry into the official handling of the case has raised serious
questions over the possible complicity of Turkey’s security forces
with extreme nationalist groups.
Hrant Dink had angered Turkish nationalists by challenging the state
position that the mass killing of Ottoman Armenians by Turks in WWI
was not genocide.
Investigators are looking into allegations that Istanbul police were
informed that Hrant Dink’s life was in danger eleven months before
he was killed.
Reports in the Turkish press say the head of police intelligence
here admits receiving a letter from police in the city of Trabzon
last February with a tip-off from an informer.
The teenager who confessed to killing Hrant Dink is from Trabzon.
The reports say the Istanbul police intelligence chief made only
superficial inquiries and failed to pass the information on to his
superiors.
Police sources have confirmed to the BBC the officer concerned has
now been suspended from duty while the investigation continues.
The focus now appears to be on whether or not the failure to act
was deliberate.
For days a fierce debate has raged about possible links between those
who killed Hrant Dink and ultra-nationalist networks operating with
the state and security forces.
‘Dark structures’
For many those suspicions hardened when video footage was released
showing police officers posing alongside the main suspect in the
murder.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has fuelled that debate by
alluding to what is known here as the "deep state" twice since Mr
Dink’s killing.
He has talked of dark structures operating within the state but
outside the law in the belief they are protecting the country.