NEW SUSPECT IN DINK CASE CONFIRMED BY WITNESSES

Today’s Zaman
Aug 23 2008
Turkey

Eyewitnesses to a high-profile assassination in Ä°stanbul last year
attested yesterday to the presence of a newly discovered suspect in
the murder case of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, shot dead
by a teenager over a year ago.

Prosecutors have for the past week been investigating claims that
Osman Hayal, the brother of one of the suspects, was also at the
scene on the day of the murder.

Dink was gunned down on Jan. 19, 2007 in broad daylight outside
the office of Agos, a newspaper where he was the editor-in-chief,
by ultranationalist Ogun Samast, who was 17 at the time of the
murder. The teenager swiftly confessed to the murder and accused
Yasin Hayal from the northern city of Trabzon of having provoked
him to the act. However, witnesses have consistently claimed that a
second person was at the scene of the murder with Samast that day,
a claim partially supported by security camera coverage, as the
footage shows a nervous man making frequent phone calls.

The police also had evidence to suspect that the second person with
Samast on that day was Yasin Hayal’s brother, Osman Hayal, whose SIM
card was proven to have been emanating signals in Ä°stanbul on the
day of Dink’s assassination. Osman Hayal was detained in Trabzon on
Wednesday and brought on Thursday for interrogation to Ä°stanbul,
where he was also shown to witnesses, who confirmed Osman Hayal was
the man they had seen on the day of the murder. Hayal’s interrogation
at the police station has been completed, and he is due to appear in
court today.

Despite Samast’s immediate confession to the murder, the ensuing
investigation has been highly controversial. Evidence gathered quickly
made it obvious that the young man had not acted alone but was in fact
driven by a group of people whom he called "older brothers" who had
plotted the crime for more than a year. One of these men, a former
police informant, allegedly tipped off the police on more than one
occasion about the assassination plan. Another witness testified during
the trial that he too had been informed about the plan to kill Dink, by
a gendarmerie colonel. In addition to shady links between the suspects
and security institutions, lawyers representing the Dink family have
accused the police at various times of destroying vital evidence and
concealing crucial information from the court and the prosecution.

In a 180-page report on their investigation, a parliamentary
subcommittee on the Dink murder announced in late July their conclusion
that "there has been negligence, fault and bad coordination both on
the part of the police department and the gendarmerie" in processing
intelligence information about the plot to kill Dink.

Lawyers representing the Dink family have consistently asserted that
Ergenekon — a network suspected of a large number of politically
motivated crimes including bombings and murders for the ultimate
purpose of overthrowing the legitimate government — is behind the
Dink murder.

–Boundary_(ID_BhFmZoCtyhZ72aFq8rjjgw)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress