TWO TURKISH POLICEMEN ON TRIAL FOR POSING WITH SUSPECT IN DINK MURDER

By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Daily Star – Lebanon
Sept 29 2007

ANKARA: Two Turkish policemen went on trial Friday for their role
in a scandal which saw security forces pose for pictures with the
suspected murderer of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, the
official Anatolia news agency reported. The trial in the northern
city of Samsun is the first time that members of the security forces
have been brought before a court over the January 19 murder, which
the police are accused of failing to prevent.

The charges followed a complaint from Dink’s family that police
protected the self-confessed killer, 17-year-old Ogun Samast, when
he was captured in Samsun a day after Dink was shot dead in Istanbul.

Footage and photos leaked to the media at the time showed officers,
some of them in uniform, posing with Samast as he held a Turkish flag,
unleashing accusations that some officials may secretly approve of
the murder.

Eight police officers were given disciplinary sanctions, but only Metin
Balta, the deputy head of the terrorism department, and Ibrahim Firat,
a police chief in the same office, have been charged over the incident.

Balta is accused of "abusing his office by allowing acts unbefitting
state officials and leading to the impression that there was sympathy
for Samast’s action," Anatolia said.

He could be sentenced to between six months and two years in jail if
found guilty.

Firat risks a one-to-five-year jail sentence on charges of "violating
the secrecy of the investigation" by leaking the images to the media,
Anatolia added.

The police are also under fire for failing to prevent the murder
despite having received intelligence of a plot to kill Dink being
organized in the northern city of Trabzon, the home of Samast and
most of his suspected associates.

Dink, 52, a prominent member of Turkey’s tiny Armenian minority,
was gunned down outside the offices of his bilingual Turkish-Armenian
weekly Agos, in central Istanbul.