DINK’S LAWYERS SAY INVESTIGATION DEFICIENT AND LACKS DEPTH

armradio.am
18.01.2008 16:45

A report prepared by the lawyers of Hrant Dink’s family and presented
to the government almost a year after his murder argues that the
investigation into the murder of the journalist last January is
incomplete, with the lawyers noting that without a comprehensive
inquiry, concrete and correct results cannot be obtained, the Turkish
Daily News reports.

Dink was murdered in front of his newspaper, Armenian weekly Agos,
at 3:00 p.m. on Jan. 19, 2007 in Istanbul by a 17-year-old teenager
with nationalist sympathies. Hundreds turned out at Dink’s funeral
chanting, "We are all Dink, We are all Armenians."

The report, which highlights all the developments since the murder,
was presented to Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Å~^ahin and Interior
Minister BeÅ~_ir Atalay by the Democratic Society Party’s (DTP)
Diyarbakır deputy, Akın Birdal, who is also a member of Parliament’s
Human Rights Commission and a rights activist.

The report argues there were repeated cases of clash of interest,
with some state officials who faced investigation as part of
the case being allowed to work while providing evidence for the
investigation. It said: "The organized structure behind the murder
has not been uncovered."

The lawyers said the investigation phase of the case was kept secret,
with the victim’s side prevented from contributing to the flow of
information, something that resulted in clear deficiencies.

The report supported the indictment but argued that the murder alone
was just part of the process, with the serious ideological basis and
the preparations made before the murder not limited to those indicted
by the prosecutor.

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