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ANKARA: Dink's Murder Trial Will Be Opened To The Media

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  • ANKARA: Dink's Murder Trial Will Be Opened To The Media

    DINK'S MURDER TRIAL WILL BE OPENED TO THE MEDIA
    Erol Onderoa~^Lu

    BIA, Turkey
    April 29 2008

    In the next hearing on July 7 Dink's murder suspect O.S. will be 18
    and the trial open to the press. An informant-defendant, Ä°gci who
    has refrained from testifying, will be assigned a lawyer to be heard
    in the next hearing the judge decided.

    The fifth hearing of the Armenian writer-journalist Hrant Dink murder
    trial is concluded Monday. The court set the next hearing day for
    July 7.

    While the court decided to maintain the existing status of the arrested
    defendants, it denied the request by the Dink's lawyers to receive
    a copy of the visual and audio records of the hearing. The court
    agreed to hear more than 10 witnesses from Istanbul and Trabzon,
    whose testimonies may help solve the murder, but four of them could
    not be reached.

    Since he did not have a lawyer, the court could not hear the testimony
    of the gendarme informant CoÅ~_kun Ä°gci who, during his trial at the
    2. Criminal Court of Peace in Trabzon, had stated that "I informed
    the gendarmerie about Yasin Hayal's murder plans." The court decided
    that he be assigned a lawyer from the bar and heard in the next
    hearing. Yasin Hayal is indicted with planning Hrant Dink's murder
    and conscripting gunman O.S. for killing the journalist.

    Filing a criminal complaint against Hayal's lawyer Following Hayal's
    lawyer Fuat Turgut's derogatory remarks of "Yohannes Pamukyan,"
    Dink's lawyers filed a complaint, claiming that these remarks were
    meant to target Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel winner Turkish writer, and the
    Armenian society in a manner that comes under the crime of provoking
    hatred and animosity among people, as defined by the article 216/2
    of the penal code.

    Dink's lawyers also demanded that the access and the password to the
    computer used in the prison where Hayal stayed after his bombing of
    McDonalds in 2004. The lawyers are hoping to determine who visited
    Hayal while he was in jail. Fethiye Cetin, one of the lawyers of
    the Dink family, said that their demands were not met fully by
    BayrampaÅ~_a prison where Hayal had stayed; they were still waiting
    for a satisfactory reply.

    In the afternoon, the defendants Ä°rfan Ozkan and Numan Å~^iÅ~_man
    were questioned. When one of Dink's lawyers Arzu Becerik asked Ozkan
    whether it was true that everyone applauded O.S.'s reply that he
    could do the murder during the meeting with a group from Istanbul,
    he answered that it was true, but she needed to ask Umit (Oksuz)
    who were present in this meeting.

    Two police officers were heard about Hayal's words "Tell Orhan Pamuk
    to be smart," in one of his previous appearances. They affirmed that
    he said these words.

    Cetin made a statement at the end of the hearing Dink Family lawyer
    Fethiye Cetin, in apublic statement she made for the media after the
    conclusion of the hearing said they were expecting the Istanbul trial
    combined with the trial in Trabzon, but "this we will know when we
    receive the replies to the petitions we had given to the Ä°stanbul
    and Trabzon public prosecutors," she concluded.

    Reminded about the claims that the Trabzon Police Department destroyed
    some of the evidences Cetin said: "There was already information about
    this matter in the file kept in the Trabzon Police Department. We asked
    again for this information. Eventually we received the statement that
    only the information regarding Mustafa Ozturk, the provincial head
    of Trabzon Alperen Ocakları, was destroyed. Regarding Erhan Tuncel,
    we communicated our much comprehensive request to the Head of the
    Intelligence Office of the Police Department. The reply from this
    department would have been studied by the magistracy and presented
    to the court, but no result has come from this yet."

    The surveillance records and the other evidentiary documents that
    will be received from the Trabzon Police Department and the Public
    Prosecutor's Office will help determine those people in the state
    who may be related to the murder case. (GG)

    --Boundary_(ID_vbCyMkCxpfE5mdoL5Jw7pA)--
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