NEWS Press (English)
April 22, 2010 Thursday
Turkey : Journalist and writer facing three trials for book about
newspaper editor’s murder
by: Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders hopes the courts will dismiss all three of
the prosecutions brought against Turkish writer and investigative
journalist Nedim Sener for his book about the role of intelligence
failures in the 2007 murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink
and instead make more of an effort to shed light on the Dink murder
itself.
Justice is being delayed in the Dink case while the judicial
authorities devote their energy to secondary charges against
journalists that are completely unjustified. As result of just one
book, entitled "The Dink Murder and the Intelligence Lies," Sener is
facing a possible combined sentence of 32 years in prison in three
trials, one of which began already and another will start on 28 April.
"The charges against Nedim Sener will continue to be premature and
unjustified until the judicial authorities have shed light on all the
circumstances surrounding Hrant Dink’s murder and until the government
and police officials involved in his murder are properly
investigated," Reporters Without Borders said. "We call for the
withdrawal of all the chargers against Sener, who just wanted to end
the impunity that has gone one for three years in the Dink case." The
press freedom organisation also calls for the withdrawal of all
charges against Kemal Göktas, who is facing a possible five-year jail
sentence in connection with his book "Hrant Dink murder: media,
justice and state," in which he looks at the role of the state and the
judicial authorities in Dink’s murder.
Sener has not so far been detained and is trying as best he can to
continue his work as a journalist. Reporters Without Borders hopes
that the verdicts that are issued in the coming days are fair and
unbiased.
Sener is facing a possible eight-year jail term for the charges of
"insulting a state official," "violating the confidentiality of
private correspondence" and "trying to influence the outcome of a
trial" that have been brought against him before an Istanbul criminal
court. These charges relate above all to Sener’s suggestion in his
book that, before Dink’s murder, Ali Fuat Yilmazer, the head of the
general intelligence section of police intelligence, suppressed a
report about threats against Dink instead of circulating it to his
superiors, as required by established procedure.
During a hearing on 15 April, Sener testified in court that he did not
intend in any way to interfere in the judicial investigation into the
Dink murder and that he wrote in his book with the sole intention of
shedding light on the murder.
In the second case against him, Sener will be tried before an Istanbul
court of assizes on charges of "obtaining classified documents" and,
by publishing them, "exposing an official who combats terrorism to the
action of a terrorist organisation." The charges carry a possible
20-year sentence.
In the third case, to be heard before a criminal court in the Istanbul
district of Bakirkoy, Sener is facing a possible four-and-a-half-year
sentence for violating a publication ban.
A Turkish journalist of Armenian origin who advocated reconciliation
between Turks and Armenians, Dink was gunned down on 19 January 2007
on an Istanbul street outside the newspaper he founded and edited,
Agos. His articles called for recognition of the Armenian genocide, a
highly charged issue in Turkey. But despite the tension and despite
receiving repeated threats from far-right groups, Dink always refused
to leave Turkey.