Reporters without borders (press release), France
May 6 2008

Little progress in latest Hrant Dink trial hearing, but press to be
admitted to next one

Little significant progress was made during the fifth hearing on 28
April in Istanbul in the trial of the 19 people accused of the January
2007 murder of Hrant Dink, a journalist of Armenian origin. Eight of
the defendants in the trial, which began 15 months ago, have been
detained since shortly after the murder.

One of the defendants, Coskun Igci, a police informer in the eastern
city of Trabzon, the home town of most of the defendants, was due to
have been questioned during the 28 April hearing but he could not
testify as he was not represented by a lawyer.

Igci previously testified to a Trabzon court that he had informed two
police officers that Yasin Hayal, one of the accused masterminds, was
planning to kill Dink. As a result of that statement, the two police
officers said they had passed on the information to their superiors,
and accused them of failing to take any action.

The Istanbul court said it would provide Igci with a lawyer for the
next hearing on 7 July, which should be open to the press because the
accused gunman, Ogün Samast, turns 18 on 28 June. Until now the
press have been barred from the hearings on the grounds that Samast
was a minor.

One of the defendants, Irfan Ã-zkan, who was released on 2 July
2007, gave damning testimony at the 28 April hearing. He confirmed
that he had heard Ã`mit Ã-ksüz, a Trabzon youth and
friend of Samast, say: `A group from Istanbul organized an important
meeting in Trabzon before the murder at which it was asked who was
going to shoot the journalist. When Samast stepped forward to say `I
will do it,’ everyone applauded.’

When asked by one of the Dink family lawyers about the participants at
this meeting, Ã-zkan refused to answer, saying Ã-ksüz
himself should provide the information.

The court agreed to a request by the Dink family’s lawyers for the
Istanbul and Trabzon prosecutor’s offices to be asked to provide
situation reports on the investigations under way into Istanbul police
officers, including police chief Celalettin Cerrah, his head of
intelligence and their aides, and into gendarmes in Trabzon.

The Dink family’s lawyers is also seeking access to official records
that would help them to establish what contacts Hayal may have
developed during a previous spell in prison in October 2004 after
bombing a McDonald’s restaurant in Trabzon. They have asked for access
to the prison computer in which all prisoner visits are recorded but
the prison administration had not responded.

Finally, the Dink family’s lawyers also filed a complaint against
Hayal’s lawyer, Fuat Turgut, accusing him under article 216.2 of the
criminal code of `inciting hate’ by insulting novelist Orhan Pamuk and
Armenians during the hearing and in the presence of journalists.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress