THIRD HEARING IN DINK MURDER TRIAL TO BE HELD TODAY
Today’s Zaman
Feb 11 2008
Turkey
The third hearing in the trial of defendants accused of assassinating
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, killed in January of last
year by an ultranationalist youth for allegedly insulting Turkishness,
will take place today.
A total of 18 suspects, including Dink’s suspected killer, 17-year-old
O.S., and an ultranationalist youth charged with planning the crime,
will go on trial for organizing the horrendous murder, at the 14th
High Criminal Court in Ýstanbul.
Dink was gunned down in broad daylight on Jan. 19 in front of
the headquarters of bilingual Armenian weekly Agos, where he was
editor-in-chief. Following Dink’s murder, many reports suggested that
the police were tipped off about the planned assassination more than
once prior to his execution yet failed to prevent it. In addition,
links have emerged among members of the security forces in Trabzon,
where the killing was planned, in Ýstanbul where it was executed and
in Ankara, where the intelligence was gathered, and the masterminds
of the murder.
Sources say the session will be recorded by cameras set up in the
courtroom that will record video as well as the conversations between
defendants and lawyers during the trial.
Dink family lawyers applied to the Ýstanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office
after the second hearing of the trial resumed in early October 2007
and accused security officers of covering up intelligence and evidence
on the slaying. The Ýstanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office then ordered
cameras to be set up in the courtroom to record the hearing.
The second hearing of suspects accused of murdering Dink was held on
Oct. 1, 2007 at the Ýstanbul 14th Criminal Court in Beþiktaþ. O.S.
expressed "regret" for the killing in his testimony.
"I was forced to do this job. I shot Dink out of fear without even
understanding how it happened. I was at my uncle’s place when I came
back to my senses. I could not sleep the entire night. I regret it;
I didn’t know he had a family. I wouldn’t have done it if I had known,"
he said in his testimony.
The Ýstanbul Public Prosecutor is expected to ask the court to sentence
Yasin Hayal, an ultranationalist youth charged with planning the
murder, to life imprisonment under hard conditions, O.S. to 42 years
in jail and the other 16 suspects to prison terms varying between 15
and 35 years.
Fethiye Cetin, an attorney representing the Dink family, has said on
the other hand that the murder has not been properly investigated,
expressing fear about the court’s independence. "No significant
distance has been covered in the investigation launched into Dink’s
assassination. It is not possible to dissipate the shroud of mist
behind his death unless a deeper probe is launched into his murder,"
she said in a report submitted to the Interior Ministry.
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