Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

ANKARA: Lawyer Cetin: Evidence Still Covered Up Five Years After Din

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • ANKARA: Lawyer Cetin: Evidence Still Covered Up Five Years After Din

    LAWYER CETIN: EVIDENCE STILL COVERED UP FIVE YEARS AFTER DINK MURDER

    Today's Zaman
    Jan 11 2012
    Turkey

    Five years after the assassination of journalist Hrant Dink, evidence
    related to the real perpetrators of the crime is still being covered
    up, the Dink family's lawyer, Fethiye Cetin, who has been the chief
    attorney in the case, has said.

    "Long ago, in 2008, we demanded the records of phone calls made in
    the vicinity of the assassination on the day of the murder. We were
    only able to have those records in court recently, a week before
    the case is going to be closed! Moreover, police provided misleading
    information to the court about the phone records," Cetin told Today's
    Zaman following the 24th hearing of the trial, which took place on
    Monday at the Ä°stanbul 14th High Criminal Court.

    The late editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, Dink
    was shot dead by an ultranationalist teenager outside the offices of
    his newspaper in broad daylight in Ä°stanbul on Jan. 19, 2007. The
    investigation into his murder stalled as the suspected perpetrator
    and his accomplices were put on trial, but those who masterminded
    the plot to kill him have yet to be exposed and punished.

    Cetin said that contrary to the police investigation, which found no
    phone conversations among the suspects on the day of the murder, the
    Dink family attorneys found with their limited resources at least five
    cell phone numbers belonging to people who were present at the crime
    scene on the day of the murder that were directly connected to Mustafa
    Ozturk and Sahil Hacısalihoglu, two suspects in the investigation.

    The Telecommunications Directorate (TÄ°B) told the court that 6,235
    phone conversations took place in the vicinity at the time of the
    murder and that 9,300 people were carrying cell phones in the area. It
    also said their records showed no link to any of the cell phones.

    "TÄ°B's statement is not true," Cetin said, adding that one of the
    numbers assigned to a cell phone present in the area at the time of
    the murder was used in 19 calls to suspect Mustafa Ozturk between the
    dates Oct. 22, 2005 -- about two years prior to the murder -- and Jan.
    27, 2007.

    She accused the Ä°stanbul Police Department of misleading judicial
    institutions, obscuring evidence and attempting to keep the truth
    from coming out.

    This is not the first time the Dink family lawyers have discovered
    information that appears to have been secretly held from the
    prosecution and the court. A lengthy list of suspicious irregularities
    in the Dink murder investigation, including deleted records and
    hidden files, suggestive of a police cover-up attempt, has marred the
    judicial process. Much of the evidence has indicated that the murder
    could have been prevented.

    Since the day of the murder, mounting evidence has indicated that the
    police were tipped off about the assassination plot some months before
    the actual attack. Ä°stanbul's police chief has also acknowledged
    that there was a tip-off about a possible attack on Dink, but said
    its priority level was too low for his department to take it seriously.

    More dishearteningly, links between the police and the suspects
    have been revealed. For example, Erhan Tuncel, a key suspect in
    the murder, was previously a police informant. Although Tuncel is
    suspected of having incited Dink's murderer, he is also said to
    be the one who tipped off the Ä°stanbul police. Important evidence,
    including Tuncel's police records, was hidden from the court. In fact,
    Tuncel's file with the police was destroyed, since it constitutes a
    "state secret," according to officials.

    The investigation has yielded more evidence linking the masterminds
    of the murder plot to the police force in Ä°stanbul and Trabzon, the
    hometown of most of the suspects and the place where the assassination
    was planned, and in Ankara, where the police were in possession of
    intelligence about the murder.

    The intention to obscure crucial evidence was not limited to hiding or
    destroying files on the suspects, the Dink family lawyers say. Footage
    from active security cameras at shops and banks located close to the
    crime scene was also mysteriously lost. These recordings would have
    been invaluable in identifying those associated with the murderer on
    the day of the assassination.

    Asked about what she expects out of the court's judgment next week when
    it is likely to end the case, Cetin said they demand life sentences
    with no possibility of parole for the instigators of the murder.

    "It is up to the court to rule. The court is willing to reach a
    judgment soon because of a possibility of discharge since the suspects
    have been on trial for almost five years now," she said.

    Meanwhile, Yasin Hayal, accused of having solicited Dink's shooter,
    Ogun Samast, to carry out the murder, told the court on Monday once
    more that he was used by the state to carry out the murder but now
    claims that the same state is trying to get rid of him.

    Upon Hayal's claims, Cetin asked him during the hearing who those
    people were using Hayal. Hayal repeated his previous claims that
    these people were Tuncel and Ramazan Akyurek, head of the National
    Police Department's intelligence unit.

    Cetin repeated that they had asked the court to summon several
    witnesses to court in order to uncover the truth, but their demands
    were rejected. Those officials included Celalettin Cerrah, head
    of the Ä°stanbul Police Department at the time; Ahmet Ä°lhan Guler,
    director of the Ä°stanbul intelligence unit at the time; ReÅ~_at Altay,
    director of the Trabzon Police Department at the time; and Akyurek.

    According to the Dink family's lawyers, bureaucracy and institutions
    resist solving the murder in its entirety because there is a lack of
    political will to move the investigation along.

    After the finalization of the case by the Ä°stanbul 14th High Criminal
    Court, the Dink case is supposed to go to the Supreme Court of Appeals.

    "The Ä°stanbul court demanded the prosecution examine the TÄ°B records
    more thoroughly. If there is new evidence, the case could be reopened
    with an additional indictment," Cetin said.

Working...
X