TURKISH SUSPECT IN DINK TRIAL SAYS ORDERED TO KILL
By Mustafa Yukselbaba
Reuters, UK
Oct 1 2007
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – The chief suspect in the murder of
Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink told a court he was forced to
carry out the killing, lawyers said on Monday, in a case seen as an
important test for Ankara’s EU membership bid.
Hundreds of protesters, fearing a state coverup, demonstrated outside
the second hearing of the case at the Istanbul courthouse with banners
proclaiming: "We are all witnesses. We demand justice."
The European Union opened membership talks with Turkey in 2005 and
sees the Dink case as a test for a judicial system often accused of
conservative bias.
Police imposed heavy security outside the court house where 19 suspects
were being tried over the killing of Dink, gunned down outside his
Istanbul office in January by a 17-year-old who has confessed to
the killing.
The hearing was closed to the media but lawyers representing Dink
quoted the 17-year-old suspect as saying in his testimony he was
ordered to carry out the killing by a second suspect. He also said
he took ecstasy and hashish on the day of the killing.
The lawyer for the second suspect denied his client had given such
an order.
A committee of Dink’s supporters, set up to monitor the trial, said
in a statement: "This court’s verdict will be decisive in showing
whether real justice can still be implemented in Turkey."
Dink’s lawyers have complained that the murder has not been properly
investigated and have expressed fears for the independence of the
court, reflecting concerns about the possible involvement of Turkey’s
so-called "deep state".
The "deep state" is a term used to describe hardline nationalists in
the bureaucracy and security forces who are prepared to subvert the
law for their own political ends.
POLICE CONVERSATION PROBED
At the weekend, Turkey’s liberal Radikal newspaper published the
transcript of a conversation between one of the suspects and a police
officer two hours after the shooting which it said showed the officer
was aware of a plan to kill Dink.
The Interior Ministry has launched a probe into the telephone
conversation.
Dink had angered Turkish nationalists with his comments on the
massacres of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World War One. More
than 100,000 people turned out at his funeral to show solidarity and
protest against violent nationalism.
Media reports have said one of the suspects had repeatedly tipped
off police about a plot to kill Dink and that these warnings had been
conveyed to the Istanbul police headquarters.
Several officials, including the head of police intelligence in
Istanbul, have been sacked or reassigned to other jobs over their
handling of the Dink case.
Ankara denies Armenian claims, backed by many historians and a
growing number of foreign parliaments, that the killings amounted to
genocide. It says large numbers of both Muslim Turks and Christian
Armenians died in ethnic fighting as the Ottoman Empire collapsed
during World War One.