Controversial name in Dink case named Cizre police chief
09:54 ¢ 06.01.15
A Trabzon intelligence police chief, who was accused of negligence in
the murder of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink in 2007, has been
assigned to the Cizre district of the southeastern province of Å?ırnak
as chief of police, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.
Ercan Demir was assigned to the Cizre police chief post after four
people were killed in the district in clashes between the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and members of the Free Cause Party
(Hüda-Par).
Demir was the police intelligence chief in Trabzon in 2007 and is
accused of having a role in the murder of Dink, failing to monitor the
murderers despite receiving notices about the planned assassination,
according to Dink’s family lawyer, daily Evrensel reported on Jan. 5.
`Ercan Demir has responsibility in the murder of Hrant Dink. It is a
grave decision that such a person is assigned as the police chief to
Cizre,’ Hakan BakırcıoÄ?lu, the lawyer of Dink family was quoted as
saying by daily Evrensel.
According to the presidential inspectors’ report, Demir failed to
monitor `Yasin Hayal and his group’ when he was the head of the
Trabzon police intelligence unit.
In 2008, Dink’s family demanded the court listen to Engin Dinç and
Ercan Demir, two police intelligence officials in Trabzon, adding
their names to the witness list as part of the investigation. The
court accepted the demand at the time.
Four people were killed in Cizre on Dec. 27, 2014 in street battles
between the PKK and Hüda-Par. The street battles came more than two
months after clashes in Turkey’s eastern and southeastern provinces
led to the deaths of about 40 people.