TURKISH POLICE ACCUSED OF COVER-UP IN JOURNALIST’S MURDER
by Nicolas Cheviron

Agence France Presse — English
October 1, 2007 Monday 2:46 PM GMT

Turkish police withheld and destroyed evidence to cover up the killing
of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, a lawyer for his family
claimed as the second hearing in the murder trial began here Monday.

"Evidence and information is being hidden from prosecutors… A lot of
evidence was destroyed and lost," Fethiye Cetin said in an interview
with the Radikal newspaper.

Several suspects in the murder, for which 19 people are on trial,
indicated in their testimonies that "they believed they were acting
on behalf of the state," she said.

Dink, 52, a prominent member of Turkey’s tiny Armenian minority,
was gunned down on January 19 outside the offices of his bilingual
Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, in central Istanbul.

Although he campaigned for reconciliation, nationalists hated him for
calling the massacres of Armenians under Ottoman rule during World
War I genocide, a label that Ankara fiercely rejects.

Cetin said tape from a security camera outside a bank near Agos
disappeared after being taken by police.

The security forces also tapped telephone conversations of two key
suspects before the murder and when prosecutors learned this, they
were given incomplete records, she added.

"Something is being covered up — maybe certain relationships"
between the suspects and members of the security forces, she said.

Dink’s murder prompted fresh calls on Ankara to purge the "deep state"
— a term used to describe security forces prepared to act outside the
law to preserve what they consider to be the best national interests.

The charge sheet says police received intelligence as early as 2006
of a plot to kill Dink organised in the northern city of Trabzon,
home of self-confessed gunman Ogun Samast, 17, and most of his 18
alleged accomplices.

Samast admitted to the shooting because Dink was "an enemy of the
Turks," according to the indictement.

In Monday’s hearing, held behind closed doors because Samast is a
minor, the teenager repeated his confession before the judge and said
he would not have killed Dink if he knew he had a family, lawyers at
the hearing told reporters.

Samast, who said he was high on drugs when he pulled the trigger
three times, faces up to 42 years in jail; he avoided a life sentence
because he is a minor.

Two other key suspects — Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel, both 26 —
are accused of heading the ultra-nationalist group Samast belonged
to and of masterminding the murder. They could be jailed for life if
found guilty.

The indictment says Tuncel was a police informer who twice told
officials in 2006 that Hayal was planning to kill Dink, but
deliberately concealed the fact that someone else would pull the
trigger because Tuncel himself was involved in the plot.

Hayal earlier served 11 months for the 2004 bombing in Trabzon of a
McDonald’s restaurant, in which six people were injured, to protest
against the US-led invasion of Iraq.

The 16 other suspects face sentences of seven-and-a-half to 35 years.

The role of the members of the security forces in Dink’s murder came
up again at the weekend as a taped telephone conversation between a
policeman and Tuncel shortly after the killing was leaked to the media.

The dialogue, which includes degrading comments about the victim,
suggests the policeman knew in advance of the murder plot.

Some 300 people demonstrated near the courthouse Monday, shouting,
"We are all witnesses. We want justice."

Claudia Roth, the visiting leader of Germany’s Greens Party, said
outside the courthouse that "Article 301 killed Dink" and urged
Ankara to abolish the infamous penal code provision that penalises
"insulting Turkishness."

Dink was given a suspended six-month sentence last year under the
article, which the European Union says is a serious affront to free
speech in Turkey.