HRANT DINK KNEW WHAT WAS COMING, SAYS LAWYER
Hurriyet
Jan 19 2009
Turkey
ISTANBUL – Hrant Dink’s lawyer Cetin says many suspects in the
Ergenekon investigation were active in the planning of Dink’s
murder. ‘The Ergenekon gang is a deep organization and as long as the
true leaders remain free, the real instigators of Dink’s murder will
never be captured’
After years of ignoring threats to his life, Armenian Turkish
journalist Hrant Dink became agitated days before a nationalist
teenager shot him Jan 19, 2007 in front of the Armenian weekly Agos,
his lawyer of many years Fethiye Cetin said.
In an interview with Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review, Cetin said
she had been Dink’s lawyer for three years when he was gunned down,
and said she was with him when Dink was found guilty of insulting
"Turkishness" under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, or TCK,
for an article he had written. In the article, he called on Armenians
to free themselves of the hate felt toward Turks because that was
the only way for them to create a future.
Dink’s efforts to make Turks and Armenians understand each other had
created many enemies on both sides. Cetin said she had seen how Dink
had been isolated and targeted over a period of three years.
Describing her meeting with Dink on Jan. 15, 2007, Cetin said:
"Despite all the threats to his person in the past, it was the first
time I realized that he was worried. He had not taken the threats
too seriously until then. A letter from EskiÅ~_ehir threatening his
son Arad and Agos employee Sarkis Seropyan had scared him."
Cetin said she believed that if Dink had not been murdered, he would
have moved overseas for a while.
The international secretary of the Yerevan-based Armenian
Revolutionary Federation Dashnaksutyun Bureau, Giro Manoyan, said
Dink’s outspokenness had created reactions against him both in Turkey,
among Turkish Armenian community and the Armenian diaspora.
He said that the Armenian public did not know much about him or what
he stood for until his murder.
Human rights activist and close friend of Dink, Ragıp Zarakoglu
described Dink as a courageous person, noting that he had refused to
leave Turkey despite all these threats.
He said renowned writers Orhan Pamuk and YaÅ~_ar Kemal had spoken
about threats to their lives, and Kemal moved overseas for some time
in the 1970s.
"The state that protected Pamuk and Kemal decided to threaten rather
than protect Dink," he said.
Zarakoglu said Dink’s murder had created a momentum that facilitated
the beginning of the Ergenekon investigation, arguing that Dink’s
assassination was a part of a plan by a criminal gang that wanted to
create chaos in the country.
Ergenekon investigation in ’07 The Ergenekon investigation started
after the discovery of 27 hand grenades on June 12, 2007 in a shanty
house in Istanbul’s Umraniye district that belonged to a retired
noncommissioned officer. The grenades were found to be the same as
those used in the attacks on Cumhuriyet daily’s Istanbul offices
in 2006.
The findings led to scores of detentions over the past two years,
putting more than 100 journalists, writers, gang leaders and
politicians under interrogation in what turned into a terror
investigation seeking to crack down on an alleged ultra-nationalist
gang named Ergenekon that sought to topple the government by staging
a coup in 2009, initially by spreading chaos and mayhem. The trial
of the suspects began late last year.
The alleged gang has been associated with the murder of a top judge
in Ankara in 2006, bombings, several assassinations and assassination
attempts over the past decade. There have been analyses and news
reports alleging Dink’s murder was also the work of the alleged gang
but there has been no judicial decision on the matter.
Cetin said the teenage gunman currently on trial together with his
accomplices had personality problems. "They come from poor families
and are anti-social. They constantly argue among themselves. The
teenage gunman does not even know why he murdered Dink," she said.
They see themselves as heroes and believe they will be released after
serving a minimum amount of time in jail, said the lawyer.
While Dink’s murder was committed by a nationalist teenager from the
Black Sea town of Trabzon and his co-conspirators, who are accused
of instigating the crime, many believe there were other more senior
people behind the scenes who controlled the planning.
Cetin said many suspects in the Ergenekon investigation were active
in the planning of Dink’s murder. "The Ergenekon gang is a deep
organization and as long as the true leaders remain free, the real
instigators of Dink’s murder will never be captured," she said.
Not enough momentum
She said Dink’s murder trial had failed to garner the momentum
necessary to find the real culprits over the past two years. She said
police departments in Istanbul, Ankara and Trabzon and the gendarmerie
had failed to share intelligence because key people were angry with
one another.
"Relevant police bureaus knew there was a assassination plan, because
informant Erhan Tuncel had told them about it. After the murder,
they started to cooperate only to tamper with evidence so their
culpability would not come to light," she said.
Tuncel and Yasin Hayal are both on trial for instigating Dink’s
murder. "In his testimony, Hayal said they thought the murder would
never be solved. How can he say that? Who does he trust? There are
laws that allow evidence to be hid. The law that protects civil
servants is one such law," she said.
Only if key police officers are removed can the investigation reveal
the truth, she said.
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