TRABZON GENDARMERIE KNEW OF DINK MURDER PLANS!
BIA
March 24 2008
Turkey
The two gendarmerie officers on trial in Trabzon have stated that they
had informed their superiors of the planned Dink murder. The superiors
are said to have faked documents to hide their previous knowledge.
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was murdered on 19 January 2007,
shot down in front of his office. The suspected gunman and several
other young men implicated in the case were from Trabzon, northern
Turkey, and soon it became obvious that the Trabzon gendarmerie had
been informed of murder plans before it happened.
However, despite efforts by the lawyers of the Dink family to have
more gendarmerie officers prosecuted, and to have the Trabzon part
of the case joined to the main trial in Istanbul, only two officers
were put on trial and the case is being heard in Trabzon.
Gendarmerie defendants implicate superiors On Thursday, 20 March, was
the second hearing in the case against Trabzon gendarmerie officers
Okan Simsek and Veysel Sahin, both of whom stand accused of gross
negligence.
During the hearing, the defendants stated that they had told their
superiors, former Trabzon Province Gendarmerie Commander Colonel
Ali Oz and Captain Metin Yildiz, about intelligence concerning the
planned murder of Hrant Dink.
The two defendants said that Yasin Hayal, on trial in Istanbul as an
instigator to the murder, had come to Istanbul in July 2006 in order
to research Hrant Dink’s home and his office, the Agos newspaper.
The statement corresponds to what gendarmerie informant and relative
of Yasin Hayal, Coskun Igci, told the Istanbul 14th Heavy Penal
Court. Igci is being tried without detention.
Fake documents prepared At the first hearing in Trabzon on 22 January,
Igci had told the court that he had informed the two defendants 3-4
months earlier that Hayal was planning to murder Hrant Dink. Igci
said that they had told him they would follow up the case.
The joint attorneys in the Dink trial have found out that Gendarmerie
Commander Oz ordered the preparation of fake documents, which showed
that the information received by Coskun Igci before the murder
was actually received a day later, that is on 20 January. This was
confirmed by witness statements.
In addition, so the defendants, they were warned by Oz and Yildiz
not to tell anyone about the information received by Igci before.
It was also learnt that Gendarmerie Sergeant Major Huseying Yilmaz had
been assigned the task of monitoring Yasin Hayal after his involvement
in the bombing of the Trabzon McDonald’s in October 2004.
The judge of the Trabzon court, Izzet Kabal, decided that the Trabzon
Chief Public Prosecution would evaluate whether any of the names
mentioned in the hearing would be investigated.
The court decided that the ten people mentioned would have to notify
the court of their current place of employment, and that they would
be called to make statements.
The next hearing of the case will be on 19 June, while the fifth
hearing in the main Dink murder trial in Istanbul is on 28 April.
CHP members of parliamentary sub-committee withdraw Meanwhile, some
members of the Parliamentary Human Rights Investigation Sub-Committee
looking into controversies in the Hrant Dink murder investigation so
far have withdrawn from their posts after the committee had announced
that it had collected all the information it needed.
Those resigning are the members from the Republican People’s Party
(CHP) in the commission, and they have argued that "there is no
possibility left to question the darkness."
CHP Izmir MP Amet Ersin told NTV news on Thursday (20 March), "I
think someone warned them. Or they thought they had started a job
they could not finish and ended their investigation."
When asked who he thought "someone" was, Ersin said he did not know,
but thought it was someone outside of parliament.
The CHP members of the commission gave a press statement on Thursday.
Istanbul MP Cetin Soysal said the investigation had not been
Professional: "Why did the research of the commission end so fast?
The commission founded to investigate the darkness, to find the truth,
has been overshadowed by the deep darkness it was questioning."
The commission had been working under the leadership of Bursa
MP Mehmet Ocaktan from the leading Justice and Development Party
(AKP), and it had announced that information and statements had been
collected. Soysal had argued that the commission was ging too fast
and had demanded that the statements be examined first.
Ocaktan had further said that seven people involved in the Dink murder,
including suspect gunman O.S. and Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel,
could not be questioned by the commission because they were still on
trial.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
