3 May 2013 /YAKUP ÇETİN, İSTANBUL
The İstanbul 2nd High Criminal Juvenile Court, which is overseeing the case into the murder of Hrank Dink, who was killed by an ultranationalist teenager in January 2007, has requested documents belonging to a plot to kill Dink, if any, from the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office.
The documents were allegedly seized from the Special Forces Command in 2010. The command was searched by a judge as part of an ongoing probe into a suspected military plot to assassinate Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç. Following the search, claims emerged that the judge found documents that mentioned a plot to kill Turkish-Armenian journalist Dink.
Hakan Bakırcıoğlu, one of the lawyers for the Dink family, reminded the court about the claims, and in response, the presiding judge decided to send a written communiqué to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office to ask if it possesses any such document seized from the Special Forces Command detailing a plot to kill Dink, and if it does, to send copies of them to the court.
Dink was gunned down in broad daylight on Jan. 17, 2007, by ultranationalist Ogün Samast. Dink was the editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos at the time. Samast is being tried in juvenile court because he was a minor at the time of the crime.
Also during Friday's hearing, another lawyer for the Dink family, Fethiye Çetin, asked the court to hear the testimony of a secret witness, who uses the codename Barış. When testifying to prosecutors involved in the Dink murder case, Barış claimed that the plot to kill Dink had been devised by JİTEM, an illegal and clandestine network within the gendarmerie. Çetin said they believe the secret witness is telling the truth.
The Dink murder shocked Turkey and the ensuing trial became mired in controversy, with Dink's family and human rights activists arguing that links between suspects in the case and the real masterminds of the murder, suspected to be in the military and police force, were not sufficiently investigated.
Hakan Bakırcıoğlu, one of the lawyers for the Dink family, reminded the court about the claims, and in response, the presiding judge decided to send a written communiqué to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office to ask if it possesses any such document seized from the Special Forces Command detailing a plot to kill Dink, and if it does, to send copies of them to the court.
Dink was gunned down in broad daylight on Jan. 17, 2007, by ultranationalist Ogün Samast. Dink was the editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos at the time. Samast is being tried in juvenile court because he was a minor at the time of the crime.
Also during Friday's hearing, another lawyer for the Dink family, Fethiye Çetin, asked the court to hear the testimony of a secret witness, who uses the codename Barış. When testifying to prosecutors involved in the Dink murder case, Barış claimed that the plot to kill Dink had been devised by JİTEM, an illegal and clandestine network within the gendarmerie. Çetin said they believe the secret witness is telling the truth.
The Dink murder shocked Turkey and the ensuing trial became mired in controversy, with Dink's family and human rights activists arguing that links between suspects in the case and the real masterminds of the murder, suspected to be in the military and police force, were not sufficiently investigated.
