Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 16 2007
Dink’s lawyers call for probe to focus on state
The integrity of the rule of law in Turkey is itself on trial,
according to lawyers representing the family of murdered newspaper
editor Hrant Dink.
They called yesterday for a more vigorous criminal investigation into
what they said was a criminal conspiracy with connections to state
institutions themselves. "This is a political assassination and
culpability does not end with the unemployed boy who pulled the
trigger or his immediate accomplices in Trabzon," said Bahri Belen,
one of the legal representatives.
The integrity of the rule of law in Turkey is itself on trial,
according to lawyers representing the family of murdered newspaper
editor Hrant Dink. They called yesterday for a more vigorous criminal
investigation into what they said was a criminal conspiracy with
connections to state institutions themselves.
"This is a political assassination and culpability does not end with
the unemployed boy who pulled the trigger or his immediate
accomplices in Trabzon," said Bahri Belen, one of the legal
representatives. He was speaking in front of the Beþiktaþ High
Criminal Court after presenting a petition to the public prosecutor’s
office to widen the murder investigation. The ability to organize an
assassination in Ýstanbul all points to a wider and more determined
organization," he said.
The Dink family lawyers include human rights activist Ergin Cinmen
and Fethiye Çetin, author of a controversial memoir about discovering
that her grandmother was an Armenian, orphaned in 1915. They said the
enquiry must now concentrate on why Istanbul security authorities
ignored repeated warnings specifying the threat to Dink. They
emphasized it was not necessary to wait for the results of an ongoing
official administrative enquiry into this official neglect to pursue
the criminal investigation.
Cinmen announced himself pleased with the consultations with public
prosecutor Fikret Seçen, but said that "good intentions" were not
enough to resolve the problem. He pointed to a long history of
prosecutions failing because other state organizations had applied
pressure or failed to cooperate. Turkey’s reputation as a democratic
nation ruled by a state of law required a thorough and transparent
investigation, he said.
Cinmen cited the infamous Susurluk car accident in 1996 which
revealed connections between politicians, organized crime and the
police. If that had been investigated properly then a later
investigation into the bombing of the book store in the southeastern
town of Þemdinli might have succeeded. In this later incident, the
public prosecutor was dismissed when his investigation pointed to
state agents provocateurs as responsible for the blast.
"For the current investigation to get to the bottom of the Dink
murder would be an important precedent," Cinmen said.
Dink was shot in front of the offices of his Agos newspaper on Jan.
19 this year. Although police apprehended 17-year-old O.S., who
confessed to the crime, the Dink family lawyers allege a greater
conspiracy. They point to a series of informer reports that were
forwarded to Istanbul by the Trabzon police which included the names
of those now under arrest.
"Ignoring seven separate informant reports is more than simple
administrative neglect," Çetin said.
16.03.2007
ANDREW FINKEL ÝSTANBUL