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TURKEY SUSPECT SAYS POLICE FAILED TO STOP JOURNALIST MURDER
Yahoo News, Australia
Dec 4 2013
December 4, 2013, 6:32 am
Istanbul (AFP) - A former Turkish police informant accused of
instigating the 2007 murder of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink
claimed in court Tuesday that he had warned police of the plot but
they failed to act.
Erhan Tuncel is being retried in an Istanbul court over the
high-profile killing in Turkey's largest city after initially being
acquitted of all charges in 2012.
Tuncel, 32, testified on Tuesday that he had informed the former head
of police intelligence, Ramazan Akyurek, of the plan to kill Dink but
that his warnings went unheeded, according to Turkish press reports.
"I have no connection to the murder. I warned them. The murder could
have been prevented," he said.
The case was adjourned until January 7.
Dink, 52, was gunned down in broad daylight by a teenage
ultranationalist outside the offices of his bilingual weekly newspaper
Agos in January 2007 in a killing that shocked the country.
Dink, then Turkey's most prominent ethnic Armenian journalist and
a leading member of the tiny community, had incurred the wrath of
Turkish nationalists for calling the World War I massacre of Armenians
a genocide.
A crowd of demonstrators gathered outside the courthouse for Tuesday's
hearing, chanting "the murderer state will be held accountable".
Tuncel's allegations appear to back up widespread accusations of a
state conspiracy after media reports that security forces had known
of the murder plot but failed to act.
Dink's lawyers and human rights activists believe that those behind
the murder were protected by the state because Dink had been receiving
threats long before he was killed.
Ethnic Kurdish actor Sermiyan Midyat read out a statement on behalf of
the demonstrators Tuesday calling on the government to stop "remaining
silent and protecting the civil servants involved in the murder".
Despite the accusations against him, Akyurek received a promotion in
2011, further angering Dink's supporters.
An Istanbul court in 2011 sentenced Dink's self-confessed killer
Ogun Samast, who was tried separately as he was juvenile at the time,
to 23 years in jail.
A year later, the court sentenced the alleged mastermind of the murder,
Yasin Hayal, to life imprisonment but acquitted 18 other defendants
including Tuncel, ruling that there was no conspiracy.
However an appeals court in May this year ordered a retrial after
ruling that there was a criminal conspiracy to murder Dink.
In an interview with Turkey's Star newspaper last month, Tuncel --
who was arrested in October after being on the run -- accused the
gendarmerie of playing a "big role" in the murder of Dink.
An Istanbul court decided last week not to merge the trial of
gendarmerie commander Ali Oz who is charged with neglect of duty over
the Dink killing, with the main trial.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/20141115/turkey-suspect-says-police-failed-to-stop-journalist-murder/
http://www.france24.com/en/20131203-turkey-suspect-says-police-failed-stop-journalist-murder
From: Baghdasarian
Yahoo News, Australia
Dec 4 2013
December 4, 2013, 6:32 am
Istanbul (AFP) - A former Turkish police informant accused of
instigating the 2007 murder of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink
claimed in court Tuesday that he had warned police of the plot but
they failed to act.
Erhan Tuncel is being retried in an Istanbul court over the
high-profile killing in Turkey's largest city after initially being
acquitted of all charges in 2012.
Tuncel, 32, testified on Tuesday that he had informed the former head
of police intelligence, Ramazan Akyurek, of the plan to kill Dink but
that his warnings went unheeded, according to Turkish press reports.
"I have no connection to the murder. I warned them. The murder could
have been prevented," he said.
The case was adjourned until January 7.
Dink, 52, was gunned down in broad daylight by a teenage
ultranationalist outside the offices of his bilingual weekly newspaper
Agos in January 2007 in a killing that shocked the country.
Dink, then Turkey's most prominent ethnic Armenian journalist and
a leading member of the tiny community, had incurred the wrath of
Turkish nationalists for calling the World War I massacre of Armenians
a genocide.
A crowd of demonstrators gathered outside the courthouse for Tuesday's
hearing, chanting "the murderer state will be held accountable".
Tuncel's allegations appear to back up widespread accusations of a
state conspiracy after media reports that security forces had known
of the murder plot but failed to act.
Dink's lawyers and human rights activists believe that those behind
the murder were protected by the state because Dink had been receiving
threats long before he was killed.
Ethnic Kurdish actor Sermiyan Midyat read out a statement on behalf of
the demonstrators Tuesday calling on the government to stop "remaining
silent and protecting the civil servants involved in the murder".
Despite the accusations against him, Akyurek received a promotion in
2011, further angering Dink's supporters.
An Istanbul court in 2011 sentenced Dink's self-confessed killer
Ogun Samast, who was tried separately as he was juvenile at the time,
to 23 years in jail.
A year later, the court sentenced the alleged mastermind of the murder,
Yasin Hayal, to life imprisonment but acquitted 18 other defendants
including Tuncel, ruling that there was no conspiracy.
However an appeals court in May this year ordered a retrial after
ruling that there was a criminal conspiracy to murder Dink.
In an interview with Turkey's Star newspaper last month, Tuncel --
who was arrested in October after being on the run -- accused the
gendarmerie of playing a "big role" in the murder of Dink.
An Istanbul court decided last week not to merge the trial of
gendarmerie commander Ali Oz who is charged with neglect of duty over
the Dink killing, with the main trial.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/20141115/turkey-suspect-says-police-failed-to-stop-journalist-murder/
http://www.france24.com/en/20131203-turkey-suspect-says-police-failed-stop-journalist-murder
From: Baghdasarian