DINK MURDER TRIAL SHOULD BRING COUNTRYWIDE ACCOMPLICES TO JUSTICE, URGE LAWYERS
Erol Onderoa~^Lu

BÄ°A, Turkey
April 28 2008

15 months later, with a hearing nearly every three months, the court
has still not determined all the responsible parties in Hrant Dink’s
murder trial. The lawyers do not think "a few young men planned
the murder."

The accused murderers of Hrant Dink, the slained editor of bilingual
Turkish-Armenian biweekly newspaper Agos, will appear before the judge
for the fifth time 15 months after the murder. On 28 April hearing
(Monday), the remaining questionings are expected to be completed.

The Istanbul 14th Criminal Court, which tries the 19 defendants,
eight of whom are arrested, had demanded at the previous hearing that
the physical surveillance reports and telephone records concerning the
arrested defendants Yasin Hayal and Mustafa Ozturk. It is established
now that Yasin Hayal was under the surveillance of the Trabzon
Police Department, a major province in the eastern Black Sea region
of Turkey, and is accused of inciting the killing, facing strict
life imprisonment. Similarly accused Mustafa Ozturk is a member of
Alperen Ocakları (translated roughly as Hero-Saint Hearths), a far
right nationalistic youth group linked to the Great Unity Party (BBP).

It is not known whether the reports will show a connection between
the Trabzon police, Alperen Ocakları and the Great Unity Party (BBP).

However, during the previous trial, the court had removed the
obligation that the head of BBP Trabzon provincial organization YaÅ~_ar
Cihan, the member of the Central Decision and Executive Committee of
BBP Halis Egemen and the two other people should join the hearings. Not
arrested, these defendants are charged with sentences of up to ten
years in jail for "being members of a terrorist organization."

Lawyer Cinmen: It was planned in Alperen Ocakları, the killers were
protected According to Ergin Cinmen, one of the lawyers of the slained
victim, who petitioned the court on February 22, there are indications
that the murder was planned at Alperen Ocakları: the statement
by Erhan Tuncel, who is being tried as the "inciter brother," that
"I still have the key to Alperenler Ocagı"; his picture with the
BBP leader Muhsin Yazıcıoglu; the fact that his place of work is
Alperen Ocakları and that his Alperen Ocakları connection was Ozturk.

The lawyers of the slained victim think that the killing of the
journalist on January 19, 2007 is not "a murder planned together by
a few young men and executed in spite of the authorities; they claim
that the local security units supported this group.

Ä°stanbul Police Department under investigation; except Cerrah

The court did not see the need to connect the ongoing trials of
the two police officers in Samsun, a Black Sea town near Trabzon,
and the two gendarmerie officers in Trabzon with the hearings of the
Dink trial. The police officers are accused of dereliction of duty,
as they had their picture taken with the accused triggerman O.S. and
the gendarmerie officers are accused with not preventing the murder
and hiding the evidence.

Following the lack of jurisdiction decision by Istanbul Chief
Public Prosecutor’s Office, Fatih Public Prosecutor’s Office,
also in Istanbul province, had opened an investigation into the
involvement of Istanbul’s chief of police Celalettin Cerrah and the
other Istanbul police department officers who are accused of not
taking into consideration the warnings before the Dink murder.

Recently, it had made it into the headlines that the Provincial
administrative Council of the Istanbul Governorship allowed the
investigation proceed only for Ahmet Ä°lhan Guler, the Head of the
Intelligence Office for the Istanbul Police Department, and the six
police officers but kept Cerrah out of it.

Upon hearing the confession "It was not us, but our superiors
who neglected their duties" of the two gendarmerie officers who
are tried for dereliction of duty in Trabzon, the lawyers of Dink
family petitioned the Istanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office for having
Trabzon’s former Gendarmerie Regiment Commander Colonel Ali Oz and nine
gendarmerie officers brought to the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s
Office to be tried in the murder case.

The purpose of the lawyers is to combine the trials of police and
gendarmerie officers in Samsun and Trabzon and perhaps the possible
trial of Cerrah and the officers tied to him in Istanbul with the
Dink’s murder trial.

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