POLICE REPORT ON DINK TONED DOWN

Hurriyet
June 27 2009
Turkey

ISTANBUL – A report on the threat to Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant
Dink’s life was tampered with and toned down before being sent to
Istanbul. The sentence ‘Yasin Hayal will murder Hrant Dink whatever the
cost’ was changed to ‘Hayal is planning to take action toward Dink’.

An intelligence report on the threat to the life of murdered
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was toned down before being
sent to Istanbul, it has been reported.

The sentence "Yasin Hayal will murder Hrant Dink whatever the cost"
was changed to "Hayal is planning to take action toward Dink."

Dink, the former editor-in-chief of daily Agos, was gunned down
Jan. 19, 2007 in front of his office in central Istanbul and the
instigator is suspected to be Yasin Hayal.

The mentioned intelligence report, written by the staff of the Trabzon
Police Department on Feb. 16, 2006 and sent to the Istanbul Police
Department two days later, carries the signature of Ramazan Akyurek
who was Trabzon’s chief of police at the time.

Akyurek is being blamed for "neglecting duty" in a report prepared
by the Prime Ministry Inspection Board, which was approved by Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Other records obtained

The daily Milliyet also obtained reports of meetings that show the
statements made to justify the removal from duty of Erhan Tuncel,
a former informant for the Trabzon Intelligence Unit. Tuncel was a
source providing intelligence on Hayal. The report clearly indicates
that Hayal was going to murder Dink, not "take action toward" him.

Ali Fuat Yılmazer, another security officer who is being blamed for
"neglecting duty" in the same report, was the head of the C section
of Trabzon’s Intelligence Unit at the time. Yılmazer’s office had
received the report Feb. 17, 2006, and the Istanbul Intelligence Unit
also received a memo on the same day. However, the memo is slightly
different from the report as plans of murder were toned down to read
"taking action." "Hayal is planning to take action toward Dink and
he will stay with his brother Osman Hayal" reads the altered memo.

The report signed by Akyurek includes intelligence provided by
Tuncel. Tuncel says an accomplice of Hayal told him that Dink
and the daily Agos were blackening the image of Turks and the
Turkish Republic and for that reason they were planning to take
action against him. However, Tuncel’s statements continued as such:
"While I was convinced Hayal would do what he wanted to do for sure,
I advised him not to do so. He told me that he would kill this person
no matter the cost."

The report also features the comments of two intelligence agents from
the police department in its evaluation section. The agents pointed
to former knowledge of Hayal speaking around of taking action and
indicated that he was capable of doing such a thing.