Agence France Presse — English
February 22, 2007 Thursday 8:20 AM GMT

Suspected killer of Turkish-Armenian journalist hospitalised

The suspected murderer of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was
hospitalised overnight and underwent surgery for appendicitis,
doctors said Thursday.

Ogun Samast was taken to hospital under heavy security measures, the
agency said.

Samast, 17, is in good shape after the operation in a state hospital
in the northwestern city of Izmit and is expected to be discharged at
the weekend, chief physician Senol Erguney told Anatolia news agency.

The suspect, who has confessed to shooting Dink outside the Istanbul
office of his bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos on January 19,
had been incarcerated in a maximum security prison in the nearby town
of Kandira, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) east of Istanbul.

Seven other people have been jailed for involvement in the murder,
believed to have been committed with ultra-nationalist motives.

The 52-year-old Dink, a leading member of Turkey’s tiny Armenian
community, called the mass killings of Armenians under the Ottoman
Empire genocide, a label that Ankara’s official line on the massacres
fiercely rejects.