Agence France Presse — English
March 9, 2007 Friday 3:18 PM GMT

10th suspect charged in Turkey over murder of journalist

An Istanbul court on Friday charged a 10th suspect over the murder of
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, Anatolia news agency
reported.

Osman Altay had been questioned by police last week over the January
19 killing and was subsequently released by a court, but the
prosecutor in charge of the investigation appealed and secured an
arrest warrant in his name.

It was not immediately clear what charges were laid against Altay by
the court which remanded him in custody pending trial.

Police were looking for another suspect who had also been questioned
and released last week, the NTV news channel reported.

Among the 10 suspects is the alleged assailant, a 17-year-old a
jobless secondary school graduate, who, officials say, has confessed
to gunning down Dink, 52, outside the offices of his Turkish-Armenian
weekly Agos in Istanbul.

Prosecutors have yet to complete their indictment on Dink’s murder.

Dink was branded a traitor by nationalists for urging open debate on
World War I massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire which he
labeled as genocide, a label that Ankara fiercely rejects.

He was given a suspended six-month sentence last year for "insulting
Turkishness" under a penal code article that has been used to
prosecute a number of intellectuals and raised alarms about freedom
of speech in Turkey.