ECHR ASKS: WHY DID YOU NOT PROTECT HRANT DINK?
Erol Onderoa~^Lu Hukuk@Bianet.Org

BIA Magazine
June 18 2009
Turkey

The ECHR has granted Turkey until November to answer questions related
to the murder of journalist Dink.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has received five
applications related to the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist
Hrant Dink, the editor of the weekly Agos newspaper, in January 2007.

Having merged applications which were made at different times,
the court is now asking Turkey questions, to which it wants answers
by November.

Lawyer Deniz Tuna of the International Hrant Dink Foundation told
bianet that the applications were related to parts of the European
Convention on Human Rights concerned with the violation of the right
to life, the right to an effective application to court, the right
to a fair trial, the right to freedom of expression and the ban on
discrimination.

One application by Dink himself Hrant Dink had appealed to the ECHR
two weeks before he was killed in relation to a six-month deferred
prison sentence he had received under Article 159 of the Turkish
Penal Code for a series of articles entitled "Armenian Identity".

Following his murder, lawyers for his family had appealed to the ECHR
when the Trabzon police and gendarmerie and the Istanbul police were
not taken to court although they were accused of having been negligent
in evaluating intelligence on murder plans.

Another application relates to the lack of punishment for Samsun
police officers who took "souvenir shots" with the suspected gunman
Ogun Samast after catching him at the Samsun bus station a day after
the murder.

Evidence of serious negligence The Prime Ministerial Review
Committee had pointed to a "serious lack of coordination" in the
sharing of intelligence between security institutes prior to the
murder. Nevertheless, no public official is being tried in the main
murder case heard at the Istanbul 14th Heavy Penal Court.

Police Intelligence Head Ramazan Akyurek, Istanbul Chief of Police
Celalettin Cerrah and Ahmet Ä°lhan Guler from the Istanbul Intelligence
Unit, as well as other officials, were never brought to court.

Rather, 18 young men, most from the Pelitli town in Trabzon province,
are on trial for the murder, as well as CoÅ~_kun Ä°gci, a gendarmerie
informant who claims that he notified the officials of murder plans,
and Osman Hayal, brother of suspect Yasin Hayal. Osman Hayal has been
found to have been in Istanbul on the day of the murder, a fact which
he denied for a long time.

The tenth hearing of the main murder trial is on 6 July.

Gendarmerie officers in separate case Eight gendarmerie officers are on
trial for negligence in not having evaluated the intelligence. However,
they only face up to two years imprisonment. Their trial continues
on 24 July.

Lawyers for the Dink family have long called for the cases to be
merged, as it was the neglect of the officers which led to the death
of Hrant Dink. (EO/AG)