HRANT DINK WAS ONE OF US, SAYS ERGENEKON SUSPECT

Today’s Zaman
Jan 27 2009
Turkey

Workers’ Party (Ä°P) leader Dogu Perincek, a suspect in the ongoing
trial against Ergenekon , a clandestine terrorist organization
charged with plotting to overthrow the government, said yesterday that
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who was slain in January 2007,
was a close friend of his and that he couldn’t have possibly been
part of a plot to kill him.

Ergenekon is accused of being behind a number of unsolved murders of
journalists, academics, public-opinion leaders and writers, including
the assassination of secularist investigative journalist Ugur Mumcu,
who was killed in January 1993 by a car bomb.

Perincek, a key suspect in the Ergenekon trial, continued delivering
his defense testimony for the third day in yesterday’s hearing. He
denied all accusations against him, saying that his party had made
great efforts to shed light on the 1996 Susurluk affair, which had
revealed the existence of clandestine and murderous organizations
with links to the state that engaged in social manipulation. He said
his party had greatly contributed to the work of a parliamentary
committee investigating the Susurluk incident at the time. He also
requested that members of that particular committee be heard in the
Ergenekon trial on this point.

He also criticized the prosecution for treating his membership in
the Talat PaÅ~_a Committee — a group that organizes activities to
counter allegations that the mass killings of Anatolian Armenians
in Turkey in the early 20th century constituted genocide — as an
Ergenekon-related activity. "Justice and Development Party [AK Party]
deputies Nevzat YalcıntaÅ~_, Mehmet Dulger and Ä°brahim Ozdogan were
also members of that group. How can that possibly be considered an
Ergenekon activity?" he asked the court.

In his defense he also emphasized that he knew and deeply respected
some of victims of the unsolved assassinations attributed to
Ergenekon. He cited Professor Bahriye Ucok, journalist Ahmet Taner
KıÅ~_lalı and Ugur Mumcu, all assassinated secular and left-wing
or left-leaning intellectuals, as his good friends and people whose
opinions he largely agreed with. However, in a surprising addition
to the list, he told the court, "Hrant Dink was one of us," referring
to the journalist’s assassination by an ultra-nationalist youth. The
broader connections of the suspect in Dink’s killing, the prosecutors
have asserted, point to Ergenekon have been behind the attack. He
said Ulusal Kanal, a television channel known for its proximity
to the Ä°P, frequently broadcasted interviews with Dink about his
anti-imperialist views.

Dink was loathed by neo-nationalist movements, which Perincek’s Ä°P
has been gravitating toward for the past decade.

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