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Agence France Presse
June 2, 2011 Thursday 1:47 PM GMT
Turkish soldiers sentenced over Armenian murder
ANKARA, June 2 2011
A Turkish court Thursday handed down jail terms of between four and
six months to a group of paramilitary policemen for negligence over
the 2007 murder of a prominent ethnic Armenian journalist.
It was the first time state officials had been sentenced over the
killing of Hrant Dink, which sent shockwaves through Turkey when it
emerged that both police and paramilitary forces knew of an
assassination plot but failed to act.
A colonel and five subordinates who held key posts in the coastal city
of Trabzon when a group of local youths hatched the plot were
sentenced by a court in the Black Sea port, Anatolia news agency said.
Two other soldiers were acquitted, the agency reported.
The sentences were the heaviest that the tribunal could impose and
lawyers for Dink's family expressed frustration that the case was not
heard by a more senior court.
"The trial could have taken place at a court dealing with heavy
crimes. But infortunately, this did not happen despite all our
efforts," attorney Fethiye Cetin told AFP.
The convicts will remain at large until the appeals court confirms
their sentences, she added.
A leading figure of Turkey's tiny Armenian minority, the 52-year-old
Dink was shot dead on January 19, 2007, outside the office of his Agos
newspaper in central Istanbul.
Prosecutors say police received intelligence as early as 2006 of a
plot to kill Dink which had been organised in Trabzon, home to the
self-confessed gunman, aged 17 at the time of the murder, and 18
suspected accomplices, who remain on trial in Istanbul.
Dink campaigned for reconciliation between Turks and Armenians over
their bloody past, but nationalists hated him for using the genocide
label for the massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, which
Ankara fiercely rejects.
In September, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the
Turkish authorities had failed to take adequate measures to protect
Dink.
The case is seen as a test for Ankara's resolve to eliminate the "deep
state" -- a term used to describe security forces acting outside the
law to preserve what they consider Turkey's best interests.
Lawyers for Dink's family suspect the gunman was encouraged and
protected by elements of the "deep state" but their efforts to put
more officials on trial have failed to bear fruit.
They have accused police of withholding and destroying evidence to
cover up the murder, including footage from a bank security camera in
the street where the journalist was gunned down.
Dink had won many hearts in Turkey with his message of peace and more
than 100,000 people marched at his funeral.
su-sft/co
From: Baghdasarian
June 2, 2011 Thursday 1:47 PM GMT
Turkish soldiers sentenced over Armenian murder
ANKARA, June 2 2011
A Turkish court Thursday handed down jail terms of between four and
six months to a group of paramilitary policemen for negligence over
the 2007 murder of a prominent ethnic Armenian journalist.
It was the first time state officials had been sentenced over the
killing of Hrant Dink, which sent shockwaves through Turkey when it
emerged that both police and paramilitary forces knew of an
assassination plot but failed to act.
A colonel and five subordinates who held key posts in the coastal city
of Trabzon when a group of local youths hatched the plot were
sentenced by a court in the Black Sea port, Anatolia news agency said.
Two other soldiers were acquitted, the agency reported.
The sentences were the heaviest that the tribunal could impose and
lawyers for Dink's family expressed frustration that the case was not
heard by a more senior court.
"The trial could have taken place at a court dealing with heavy
crimes. But infortunately, this did not happen despite all our
efforts," attorney Fethiye Cetin told AFP.
The convicts will remain at large until the appeals court confirms
their sentences, she added.
A leading figure of Turkey's tiny Armenian minority, the 52-year-old
Dink was shot dead on January 19, 2007, outside the office of his Agos
newspaper in central Istanbul.
Prosecutors say police received intelligence as early as 2006 of a
plot to kill Dink which had been organised in Trabzon, home to the
self-confessed gunman, aged 17 at the time of the murder, and 18
suspected accomplices, who remain on trial in Istanbul.
Dink campaigned for reconciliation between Turks and Armenians over
their bloody past, but nationalists hated him for using the genocide
label for the massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, which
Ankara fiercely rejects.
In September, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the
Turkish authorities had failed to take adequate measures to protect
Dink.
The case is seen as a test for Ankara's resolve to eliminate the "deep
state" -- a term used to describe security forces acting outside the
law to preserve what they consider Turkey's best interests.
Lawyers for Dink's family suspect the gunman was encouraged and
protected by elements of the "deep state" but their efforts to put
more officials on trial have failed to bear fruit.
They have accused police of withholding and destroying evidence to
cover up the murder, including footage from a bank security camera in
the street where the journalist was gunned down.
Dink had won many hearts in Turkey with his message of peace and more
than 100,000 people marched at his funeral.
su-sft/co
From: Baghdasarian