MWC News, Canada
March 26 2007

Turkish politician held over murder

Global
Written by Agencies

Turkish police have detained a right-wing politician for
interrogation in connection with the killing of an ethnic Armenian
journalist, a news channel has reported.

Police detained Yasar Cihan, head of the local branch of the
conservative and nationalist Great Unity party in the port city of
Trabzon, private NTV television reported on Sunday.

The detention came several hours after Patriarch Mesrob II, the
spiritual head of the Armenian Orthodox community in Turkey,
criticised the authorities for failing to find those who ordered the
killing of Hrant Dink.

Dink was killed outside his paper, Agos, in Istanbul in January.

Prosecutors have pressed charges against 10 suspects, including some
former members of the youth wing of Great Unity.

According to NTV, police were still looking for another leading
member of Great Unity, Halis Egemen.

Dink’s killing prompted international condemnation as well as debate
within Turkey about free speech, and whether state institutions were
tolerant of militant nationalists.

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