The New Anatolian, Turkey
March 27 2007
Police detain BBP Trabzon head in Dink murder probe
TNA with wires
27 March 2007
Police late Sunday detained 10 people in Trabzon including Yasar
Cihan, the Grand Unity Party’s (BBP) Trabzon head, as part its
investigation of the January killing of journalist Hrant Dink.
It was not immediately known on what grounds the politician was
detained.
The detainees were brought to Istanbul Police headquarters following
procedures in Trabzon, and police said Cihan was detained in line
with testimony of the Erhan Tuncel, one of the key suspects. Halis
Egemen of the same party is also wanted by the police.
Shortly after Dink’s killing, Cihan allegedly assisted the family of
Yasin Hayal, said to be the inciter of the Dink murder, with YTL
1,000 when he was in prison. Cihan had admitted having given money to
one of the suspects’ families but had insisted it was part of charity
money he regularly donates to needy families.
‘Instigator well protected,’ claims Patriarch Mesrob II
Just hours before the police net, Patriarch Mesrob II, the spiritual
head of the Armenian Orthodox community in Turkey, criticized
authorities for failing to find those who ordered Dink’s killing. At
an Easter ceremony in Hatay, Mesrob Moutafian claimed, "The real
instigators of Hrant Dink’s assassination are well protected and
that’s why they haven’t been exposed."
Although confirming that police were interrogating Cihan and three
other party officials, the party’s leader, Muhsin Yazicioglu said, "I
don’t know why they have been detained after months passed in this
investigation but it’s also wrong to accuse everyone with murder that
has been detained."
Yazicioglu declined to make further comment on the issue, as it is a
judicial matter now.
Dink, the 52-year-old editor of the bilingual Agos newspaper and an
outspoken activist for minority rights and free expression, had been
brought to trial several times for allegedly "insulting Turkishness,"
a crime under Turkey’s penal code. He was killed outside the offices
of his paper, Agos, in Istanbul on Jan. 19. Prosecutors have pressed
charges against 10 suspects, including some former members of the
BBP’s youth wing. Most of the suspects are from Trabzon. Dink’s
killing prompted international condemnation as well as debate within
Turkey about free speech, and whether state institutions were
tolerant of militant nationalists.