TURKEY OPENS TRIAL OF 18 SUSPECTS IN JOURNALIST MURDER CASE
People’s Daily Online, China
July 2 2007
A high criminal court in Turkey’s largest city of Istanbul on Monday
opened trial of 18 suspects accused of involvement in the killing of
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, local media reported.
Dink, 53-year-old editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish- Armenian
weekly Agos, was shot dead in front of his office in Istanbul on Jan.
19.
Only a day after the murder, police arrested Ogun Samast, who later
confessed to killing Dink by shooting him twice in the head and once
in the neck.
Monday’s hearing is closed to the public and media as Samast is less
than 18 years old, Turkish Daily News reported.
The prosecutor is demanding life imprisonment for Erhan Tuncel and
Yasin Hayal, who were accused of masterminding the murder, and that
Samast be sentenced to prison terms between 18 to 24 years.
The 15 other suspects face sentences of seven-and-a-half to 35 years.
Before the killing, Dink, a Turkish citizen of Armenian descent,
hadbeen convicted of insulting Turkey’s identity over his comments
on the alleged Armenian genocide by Ottoman Turks during World War
Iand received a six-month suspended sentence. Dink had also received
threat from nationalists who considered him as a traitor. Turkey has
denied that up to 1.5 million Armenians died as a result of systematic
genocide during the Turkish Ottoman period between 1915 and 1923.