TURKEY’S INTERIOR MINISTRY CALLS COMPENSATION TO DINK FAMILY “UNJUSTIFIED ENRICHMENT”

PanARMENIAN.Net
August 6, 2011 – 10:46 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Turkey’s Interior Ministry has denied any
responsibility in Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink’s
assassination, claiming in a failed appeal to the Council of State
that paying compensation to the man’s family would lead to “unjustified
enrichment.”

“The [plaintiff] would have had to have felt great anguish and grief as
a consequence of an unlawful operation or an act by the administration
for non-pecuniary damages to be imposed [on the defendant,]” the
Interior Ministry said in appeal.

Paying 100,000 Turkish Liras in compensation for non-pecuniary
damages would lead to “unjustified enrichment” for Dink’s family,
the Ministry further said, Hurriyet Daily News reported.

The 10th Istanbul Administrative Court ordered the Interior Ministry on
Oct. 27, 2010, to pay 100,000 liras in damages to Hosrof and Yervant
Dink, Hrant Dink’s two brothers, due to the gross dereliction of duty
allegedly committed by the Ministry in Dink’s assassination.

The court said the Ministry had not prevented the murder and failed to
protect Dink despite the fact that it was in possession of sufficient
evidence that there was a plot against the journalist’s life.

The Interior Ministry then appealed to the Council of State for the
execution to be stayed. The Council of State, however, denied the
Ministry’s appeals. The Interior Ministry also said the lawsuit against
it should have been filed at a court of first instance, rather than
at an administrative court; it also referred to Dink’s assassination
as a “nefarious attack” in its appeal to the Council of State.

Dink was the editor of Agos and Turkey’s best known Armenian voice
abroad. He was shot in broad daylight as he left his office in
Istanbul’s Sisli district in 2007.