RSF QUESTIONS RELATIONS BETWEEN ERGENEKON AND HRANT DINK MURDER
BIA Magazine
June 3 2009
Turkey
Reporters without Borders is supporting the call of Hrant Dink’s
family and lawyers for a serious investigation into relations between
the murder of the journalist and the ultranationalist Ergenekon
organisation.
Paris – Rsf03 Nisan 2009, Cuma Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
supports a request which the family and lawyers of slain Turkish-
Armenian journalist Hrant Dink have addressed to an Istanbul court
asking it to seriously consider the possibility that the clandestine
ultranationalist group Ergenekon was involved in Dink’s January 2007
murder. The court is trying a group of men accused of the murder and
is due to hold its next hearing on 20 April.
"The court must examine the links that may have existed between
certain Ergenekon members and Dink’s murderers," Reporters Without
Borders said. "If the court takes account of this evidence, the trial
could enter a new phase that could lead to an impartial verdict in
the weeks ahead."
Connections between murder suspects and nationalists
The Dink family was told about the possible links by a friend of
Dink’s, Ali Bayramoglu, a reporter with Yeni Safak, a daily newspaper
that supports Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and
Development Party (AKP). Bayramoglu first began suspecting Ergenekon’s
involvement a few days after Dink’s murder.
Ogun Samast, the youth who allegedly fired the shots that killed Dink,
Yasin Hayal, the accused mastermind, and Erbil Susaman, another of
the defendants, were all allegedly in physical and telephone contract
with the Ergenekon network. They are believed to have been in contact
with Mustafa Ozturk, who at the time was the head of the far-right
group the Alperen Hearths, and with Veli Kucuk, one of those who have
been charged and detained for alleged participation in the Ergenekon
conspiracy.
The Dink family’s lawyers have given this information to the Istanbul
court handling the Dink murder trial and to the Istanbul court handling
the Ergenekon case.
The editor of the newspaper Agos, Dink was gunned down outside the
newspaper’s headquarters in Istanbul on 19 January 2007. The trial
of his alleged killers began in July 2007.
An alleged clandestine network with links to the military and
security forces and inspired by the secular convictions of the
Turkish republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Ergenekon is
accused of plotting against the AKP government. The trial of 86
alleged participants – 41 of whom are being held in Silivri prison,
west of Istanbul – began last October.
Turkey was ranked 103rd out of 173 countries in the latest Reporters
Without Borders press freedom index. (RSF/AG)
*This article was taken from Subheadings were added.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
