COURT ASKED TO INVESTIGATE ERGENEKON LINK IN DINK MURDER

Today’s Zaman
Feb 10 2010
Turkey

A court hearing the murder trial of journalist Hrant Dink on Monday
requested information from the Istanbul Police Department on whether
there were any links such as telephone conversations between the
suspected murderers of Dink and any of the suspects in the trial
of Ergenekon, a clandestine gang charged with plotting to overthrow
the government.

The Istanbul 14th High Criminal Court is hearing the trial. Monday
was the 12th session in the 20-suspect trial. Five of the suspects are
jailed, while others had earlier been released pending trial. The panel
of judges on Monday ruled to keep the five suspects under arrest. The
suspects include Erhan Tuncel, a former police informant who is
believed to have supplied the hit man with a gun; Ogun Samast, the
ultranationalist teenager who gunned Dink down outside his office
in 2001; and Yasin Hayal, believed to have acted with Tuncel in
masterminding the Dink murder.

In addition to requesting information about possible phone and
wired communication between the Dink murder suspects and those in the
Ergenekon trial, the panel of judges decided to request photocopies of
all documents currently held by the 13th High Criminal Court regarding
an alleged plan of psychological warfare that included attacks against
non-Muslim minorities which is now being held as evidence against
some army officers who are suspects in the second Ergenekon trial,
one of the two ongoing trials into Ergenekon.

Erhan Tuncel and Yasin Hayal — two of the prime suspects in the
murder trial of Agos Editor-in-Chief Hrant Dink — were brought to
court by police for the 12th session in the trial on Monday.

During Monday’s hearing, the panel of judges also requested information
from the Ankara Telecommunication Communications Administration
about wired communications between Orhan OzbaÅ~_ and Turan Meral,
two of the witnesses who have testified in the trial. The court also
decided to have the co-plaintiff lawyers in the case, who had earlier
sought the arrest of these two individuals along with another person
named Kaan Gercek, file their own criminal complaints.

It also decided to again request information from the Ä°stanbul Police
Department on an Internet café on Å~^afak Street, where Dink was shot
on Jan. 19, 2007, including business licenses and other documents
of the store. This is the second time the court has asked for these
documents. The court also decided to write to the Å~^iÅ~_li mayor’s
office for information on the Internet café and also to the UÅ~_ak
High Criminal Court to get Cahit Kılıc, a police officer who was
running the Internet café on the day of the murder but was later
assigned to a post with the UÅ~_ak Police Department, to appear in
court and testify as a witness.

The panel of judges also decided to subpoena Erhan Sevil and Mehmet
Ali Temelocak as witnesses for the next hearing. It in addition ruled
to bring Mesut Kadri, another witness, to the next hearing by police
force if necessary. It furthermore made the decision to correspond with
the Umraniye Prison Directorate and the Umraniye Prosecutor’s Office so
that Erhan Ozen, who is in Umraniye Prison charged with another crime
and who has requested to testify in the trial, can be brought to court.

The panel also ruled to have the suspects, the prosecutors and all
the co-plaintiffs and their lawyers meet at the chambers of Resul
Cakır on April 12 to review three secret reports sent to the court
by the National Police Department.

The panel of judges said a witness whose identity will be kept secret
will be testifying in the next hearing, which is scheduled for May 10.

The panel of judges also overturned a request from suspect Tuncel
and from the co-plaintiff lawyers to hear police officers Ramazan
Akyurek, Selim Kutkan, Ahmet Ä°lhan Guler, Ali Fuat Yılmazer, ReÅ~_at
Altay, Huseyin Yavuzdemir and Sabri Uzun as witnesses, saying the
testimonies of these officers would not contribute to the existing
testimony from various officers. The court in addition ruled to have
an Armenian-speaking translator appointed for the secret witness who
will testify at the next hearing.

What the witness had said The court also noted that this witness, who
was supposed to be ready for Monday’s hearing, was not in attendance
and ruled to write a notice to the Ä°stanbul Prosecutor’s Office to
make sure the witness testifies at the next session.

In addition to this the Ä°stanbul Police Department yesterday released
a statement denying some news reports which stated that the police
department was responsible for the secret witness not showing up to
testify on Monday because the department was supposed to bring the
witness to court. The statement said the department never received any
directive to bring the witness to court on Feb. 8. A later statement
in the day from Presiding Judge of the 14th High Criminal Court Erkan
Canak confirmed this, noting that the witness could not be summoned
to the stand due to the absence of a translator.

Slain journalist Hrant Dink’s wife, Rakel, is seen among the protestors
in front of an Ä°stanbul court.

This witness, who was supposed to be heard on Monday, had said in his
initial testimony to prosecutors that Hayal and Samast had fired at
Dink together on the day of the murder, contrary to the perception
that Samast was the only hitman. The witness, who uses a translator,
testified to the prosecutors on Jan. 30, 2007, saying a man who
appeared to be around 40 to 45 years of age and 1.65 meters in height
first approached Dink and spoke to him for three to five seconds. The
witness testified: "I saw this person make physical contact with Dink.

At the same time, I saw two people, one from the front and one
from behind, approach Dink. The one that was coming from behind had
brown hair, a round face, a dirty beard, fair skin, short fingers,
was study and about 1.70 meters tall. He looked like he was high
on drugs; he was wearing a black coat that went down to his knees,
a colored sweater inside his coat and as far as I can remember, he
shot at Hrant Dink. The one that I later learned was Ogun Samast
also shot twice at the same time as the other one, and he loudly
uttered something that had the word "Armenian" in it as he pulled his
gun." The secret witness also identified the second gunman as Hayal
from the pictures he was shown.

Cage plan and Dink connection Meanwhile, the co-plaintiff lawyers
in the 12th trial demanded that the court investigate whether Dink’s
killing was part of the Cage plan, an alleged military plot to create
panic and chaos recently exposed by the Taraf daily. The plan mostly
focused on killing non-Muslims and bombing mosques to create chaos
that would eventually help the plotters take over the government.