AGOS JOURNALISTS FOUND NOT GUILTY OF INFLUENCING JUDICIARY

ArmRadio.am
15.06.2007 15:40

A court in Istanbul yesterday found Agos weekly journalists Serkis
Seropyan, Arat Dink, Aydın Engin and Karin KarakaÅ~_lı not guilty
of trying to create undue influence on the judiciary for articles
criticizing the conviction of former editor-in-chief of the paper,
Hrant Dink, the Turkish Daily News reports.

The charges against Dink, who was murdered in January by a 17-year-old
extreme nationalist, was based on an article where he said: "The
clean blood that will replace the poisoned blood of the Turk is
present in the honored veins that will be established between the
Armenian and Armenia." Several people, including the controversial
nationalist lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz had filed complaints against the
journalist. The Å~^iÅ~_li Prosecutor’s Office then took on the case,
filing charges against Dink for ‘insulting Turkishness’. Dink had
argued that what he meant by the statement was that Armenians had
the strength to overcome their destructive hatred of Turks.

The Å~^iÅ~_li Court dropped the charges against Dink, and decided
that there was nothing illegal in the articles written by Seropyan,
Arat Dink and Karin KarakaÅ~_lı.

However, the court decided to file a complaint against Aydın Engin
for insulting the judiciary in his article "This judiciary should be
‘touched.’"

The court also said that KarakaÅ~_lı, who was being accused of
insulting Turkishness together with Dink, was not guilty.

–Boundary_(ID_vxPt6oVqx6NlpKh/eqeX+g)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress