DINK MURDER TRIAL: SAMAST ARRIVES YET FAILS TO TALK
BIA Magazine
April 20 2009
Turkey
Case is postponed to July. Lawyers from France observe the
hearing. Alleged gunmen Samast declines to respond to questions. Court
rejects demands to interrogate police officers.
Ninth hearing of the editor-in-chief of Agos newspaper, Turkish
Armenian journalist Hrant Dink’s murders case is held today at the
Istanbul 13th High Criminal Court. The court postpones the case to
6 July.
The court heard five convict witnesses, Volkan Eryelig, Å~^inasi
Å~^enturk, Veli Halis Celik, Orcun Curek and Adil Orhan, who had
applied to Silivri Prison authorities to testify at the case. They
all stated that alleged gunman Ogun Samast "was used as a pawn" and
that "someone else had pulled the trigger." They claimed to get this
information from former Istanbul Police chief Å~^ukru Balcı’s son,
with whom they shared a cell at the prison.
Alleged gunman Ogun Samast participated in today’s hearing. He had
been absent during last two hearing on health problems.
Yet, he declined to answer to questions proposed by joint attorneys. He
reacted to claims that he wasn’t alone during the murder and explained
that he found Agos’s offices by asking around.
Observers from France
Kadriye Karcı from Germany’s Die Linke, former chair of Diyarbakır
Bar Association Sezgin Tanrıkulu, Emma Sinclair-Webb from Human
Rights Watch, Paris Bar Association Criminal Law Commission chair
Vincent Niore, Matthieu Brocher, French Armenian Lawyers Union (AFAJA)
chair Alexandre Couyoumdjian and members Rose-Marie Frangulian Le
Priol and Alexandre Aslanian observed the hearing.
During the hearing, a defense lawyer, Havva Sezen demanded that her
French colleagues should not wear robes or leave the courtroom. She
argued that their presence would harm the right to a fair trial. Joint
attorneys reacted to this suggestion. The court refrained from making
a ruling on the issue.
Police officers elude testifying Prosecution demanded that the request
for taking the testimonies of Istanbul Police Chief Celalettin Cerrah,
former Trabzon Gendarmerie commander Ali Oz and Police Intelligence
Department chief Ramazan Aktyurek should be overturned. The court
accepted this demand.
Moreover, the prosecutor asked for the release of accused Ersin Yolcu
and Ahmet Ä°skender. This demand was rejected.
20 suspects -of whom five are under arrest- are on trial. Erhan Tuncel
and Yasin Hayal, who are accused of inciting the murder, were given
restraining orders because of their fight during the last hearing
and didn’t attend today’s hearing.
Despite being considered as a part of Ergenekon investigation -where
more than 80 people are on trial for trying to cause instability
in order to lay the ground for a coup-, not one state or security
official is under trial or investigation with regard to Dink’s murder.
Dink family’s persistent efforts to include police and gendarmerie
officials, allegedly knowingly restrained from preventing the murder
in the trial haven’t produced results. Two applications were filed
at the European Court of Human Rights in this regard. Hrant Dink was
murdered on 19 January 2007, before the offices of his newspaper
Agos in Ä°stanbul, Å~^iÅ~_li. Ogun Samast was caught two days
later.(EO/EZO/AGU)
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
