Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Feb 2 2007
Turkey hit by scandalous aftershocks from Dink murder
The police launched a probe and the government vowed not to tolerate
gangs within security organizations after Turkish media published
scandalous images showing members of security forces posing for
pictures with the alleged murderer of Turkish-Armenian journalist
Hrant Dink after his arrest.
Video footage of 17-year-old Ogün Samast, the suspected murderer of
Dink, posing in front of a Turkish flag and holding another flag next
to security officials sent shockwaves across Turkey when it was first
broadcast on private Turkish television, TGRT, on Thursday night.
The Turkish press was outraged yesterday, describing the footage as
scandalous and saying it was as appalling as the murder of Dink on
Jan. 19. Dink was gunned down outside his office in broad daylight,
and Samast reportedly told the police that he killed Dink because he
had said "Turkish blood is dirty."
Samast was seen in the video holding out a Turkish flag and posing
with officers, some of them in uniform. Behind Samast was a poster
with another Turkish flag carrying the words of Mustafa Kemal
Atatürk, the revered founder of modern Turkey: "The nation’s land is
sacred. It cannot be left to fate." A voice in the video can be heard
asking if the quote on the poster can be arranged above the suspect’s
head. Someone also tells Samast to fix his hair.
Blasting the episode, daily Sabah said in its headline: "Shoulder to
shoulder with the triggerman: suspected killer Samast was given the
hero treatment. "A kiss on the forehead is the only thing the
murderer was not given," growled daily Radikal. "This is the picture
of the mindset that killed Dink."
`We are in an effort to prevent such formations and attempts to set
up gangs in violation of the supremacy of law,’ Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoðan said in response to questions over the footage. But
when reminded of growing calls for resignation of senior officials,
including Interior Minister Abdülkadir Aksu over the way the murder
case has been handled, Erdoðan was cautious, saying such concepts
should not be watered down.
The police launched a probe after the leaking of the footage. "The
pictures were shown on television in the evening and inspectors will
clarify who took the pictures and why. We in the police will do
everything necessary," police spokesman Ýsmail Çalýþkan told a weekly
news conference. "Whoever is responsible will be given the
appropriate punishment."
The episode comes amid heightened debates over "deep state," the code
for shadowy ultranationalist elements in the security forces, ready,
if need be, to act outside the law. Authorities have been accused of
failing to act on warnings that ultranationalists planned to murder
Dink. Last week, the Interior Ministry dismissed the police chief and
governor of Trabzon and sent prosecutors to investigate whether local
authorities were at fault.
The Dink murder case also raised possibilities that the police and
the Gendarmerie Command, attached to the General Staff, could be at
odds over the case.
Earlier in the day, the gendarmerie released a statement, denying
reports the footage was shot at one of their offices in Samsun, the
city where Samast was arrested after a nationwide manhunt. It said
the footage was shot in a police station cafeteria and angrily blamed
its leakage to the media as a "purposeful act."
"The military police personnel seen in the images were personnel
assigned to hand over the suspect to the police," the gendarmerie
statement said. Some of the security personnel were wearing
gendarmerie uniforms while others were in police uniforms.
Asked whether there was tension between the gendarmerie and the
police, Erdoðan said there could be "ill-intentioned people who do
not respect this country’s values" in every organization and added
that it was important to get the state organizations of such
elements.
"It needs to be emphasized that no one should be engaged in efforts
to pit our institutions against each other," he told reporters in
Ýstanbul. Erdoðan has already acknowledged that the "deep state" has
operated in Turkey since Ottoman times and said Turkey has paid a
heavy price for not dismantling it.