International Herald Tribune, France
Feb 2 2007
Scandal in Turkey over photographs of police posing with alleged
killer of journalist
The Associated PressPublished: February 2, 2007
ISTANBUL, Turkey: The Turkish media published photographs and video
on Friday of police and military police officers posing with the
alleged killer of an ethnic Armenian journalist, as newspapers
denounced it as "hero treatment" of the suspect.
The photographs show 17-year-old nationalist Ogun Samast, holding out
a Turkish flag and posing with officers, some in uniform. Behind
Samast a poster with another Turkish flag carries the words of
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the revered founder of modern Turkey: "The
nation’s land is sacred. It cannot be left to fate."
Samast is charged with the Jan.19 killing of Hrant Dink, a
52-year-old ethnic Armenian journalist who had angered Turkish
nationalists with repeated assertions that the mass killings of
Armenians around the time of World War I was genocide.
The Turkish media was outraged by the photographs and video.
"Shoulder to shoulder with the triggerman: suspected killer Samast
was given the hero treatment," the Sabah daily reported on its front
page.
Later Friday, the state-owned Anatolia news agency reported that four
police officers in Samsun, where the photographs were taken, had been
dismissed and four military police officers had been moved to other
assignments.
It was not clear whether the eight officers were the ones posing with
Samast.
Initial reports said the photographs were taken at a military police
office at the bus station where Samast was captured, but military
police said they were taken at a police station nearby.
"The military police personnel seen in the images were personnel
assigned to hand over the suspect to the police," a statement from
military police headquarters said.
The statement urged the media to be cautious in publicizing "attempts
aimed at fraying the Turkish Armed Forces" and expressed concern
about the motives of those who leaked the images.
More than 100,000 people marched at Dink’s funeral, many of them
chanting for Turkey to abolish a repressive article in the penal code
used against many intellectuals, including Dink, who spoke openly on
controversial topics.
The penal code makes insulting Turkey or the Turkish national
character a crime.