POLICE INTELLIGENCE CHIEF FIRED IN TURKEY DURING INVESTIGATION OF HRANT DINK’S MURDER
Pravda, Russia
Feb 6 2007
Turkey’s government has removed the police intelligence chief of
Istanbul as part of an investigation into the killing of an ethnic
Armenian journalist in the city last month, for reportedly ignoring
a tip about the planned attack one year ago, newspapers said Tuesday.
The Interior Ministry suspended intelligence chief Ahmet Ilhan Guler
on Monday evening following the Jan. 19 killing of Hrant Dink. The
52-year-old journalist had angered Turkish nationalists with repeated
assertions that the mass killings of Armenians around the time of
World War I was genocide, the AP reports.
Daily Sabah newspaper reported on Tuesday reported that Guler was
suspended for not reporting a tip to his superiors which came 11
months before the deadly attack.
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.
It is a crime to insult Turkey or the Turkish national character.
Turkey’s government pledged an investigation "at full speed" into
Dink’s killing and his government removed the governor and police chief
of Trabzon, the city on the Black Sea coast that is home to suspects
in the murder. Several other police officers were also suspended for
posing with the 17-year-old killer after his capture in the Black
Sea port city of Samsun.