Epress.am News from Armenia
A Turkish court on Tuesday handed down life imprisonment for Yasin Hayal, a major suspect in the killing of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, of instigating a murder while another suspect Erhan Tuncel was acquitted of murder charges, Today’s Zaman reported.
The İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court issued its ruling in the 25th hearing of the case, ending a five-year trial. The two, and all other suspects, were cleared of charges of membership in a terrorist organization. Tuncel was given 10 years and six months for an unrelated McDonalds bombing in 2004.
The late editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, Dink was shot dead on Jan. 19, 2007 by an ultranationalist teenager outside the offices of his newspaper in İstanbul in broad daylight. Evidence discovered since then has led to claims that the murder was linked to the “deep state,” a term used in reference to a shady group of military and civilian bureaucrats believed to have links with criminal elements.
Tuncel, one of the key suspects in the murder who was previously a police informant, had his final defense statement at the hearing. Tuncel, who was accused of being an instigator of the murder, said that the murder was an action of Ergenekon, a clandestine organization whose alleged members are currently standing trial in court cases on charges of plotting against the government.
Following the announcement of the court ruling, a group of people supporting Dink’s family and demanding justice for Hrant Dink showed outrage with the ruling.
Dink family’s lawyer, Fethiye Çetin, slammed the ruling, saying it meant that a “state tradition of political murders” was deliberately left intact because it did not deal with accusations of state involvement in the 2007 murder.
“They made fun of us throughout the five-year trial process. We did not know they saved the biggest joke to the very end,” she told reporters soon after the verdict was read out. “This ruling means a tradition was left untouched. The state tradition of political murders. The tradition of state discriminating against some of its citizens and turning them into enemies,” she said.
Çetin also vowed to pursue all available legal remedies against the ruling, asserting that the verdict marked the end of only an initial phase of the case, which consisted of the trial of hitmen in the murder. The prosecutor in the case also plans to appeal the verdict.
After the finalization of the case by the İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court, the Dink case is supposed to go to the Supreme Court of Appeals, Çetin had told Today’s Zaman, because the court demanded the prosecution examine the TİB records more thoroughly.
“If there is new evidence, the case could be reopened with an additional indictment,” Çetin said.
Hrant’s Friends vow to fight for justice to be served
“Hrant’s Friends,” who hold demonstrations before each trial demanding justice, met at the Beşiktaş and Dolmabahçe Squares yesterday before the hearing of the case started. Carrying a placard that read, “For Hrant, for Justice,” the group walked to the courthouse.
Garo Paylan, who read a statement on behalf of the group, said in regards to the expected ruling:
“The ruling is the state’s decision. The ones who decided to take Hrant from us five years ago — the security forces, gendarmerie, intelligence, judiciary, media, government, opposition — will once again make a decision in the courthouse. They will say that the murder is the job of two or three hitmen. They will try to hide in their dark world. But we know them. They don’t know a thing: This case will not end before we say that it did.”
Paylan also reminded that it will be the fifth year of the Dink’s murder on Thursday. “We will shout out the words we have been shouting at them for five years: You are murderers.”
He also reminded that Hrant’s Friends will gather in Taksim Square on Jan. 19 and walk to the spot where Dink was killed. Similar demonstrations are planned outside of Turkey as well. “We will be out on the streets until we find you one by one. For Hrant,” he added.