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DINK FAMILY SEES STATE-LINKED PLOT
Gulf Times, Qatar
September 17, 2013 Tuesday
BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) MP and politician Sebahat Tuncel
(left) and CHP (Republican People's Party) MP Sezgin Tanrikulu(right)
chant slogans in front of the Caglayan Law Court in Istanbul.
By Ece Toksabay, Reuters/Istanbul A retrial over the murder of a
Turkish-Armenian journalist, that triggered huge protest rallies in
Turkey, opened yesterday with demonstrators outside the court accusing
authorities of covering up a conspiracy by nationalist elements in
the state apparatus.
Hrant Dink, shot dead outside the office of his journal Agos in January
2007, had angered nationalists as a critic of government policies
towards the country's 60,000 Christian Armenians and its diplomatic
standoff with neighbouring Armenia. He was repeatedly prosecuted for
"insulting Turkishness".
Around 200 demonstrators gathered outside the Istanbul court where
eight defendants were being retried after an appeals court deemed
they were part of a criminal conspiracy. This overturned an original
court ruling that those convicted over Dink's murder acted alone.
The crowd chanted "the murderer state will give account" and "we
are all Hrant, we are all Armenians", holding up banners in Turkish,
Armenian and Kurdish. They see Dink as victim of a shadowy 'deep state'
network of nationalist militants accused of killings of prominent
liberals and Kurdish nationalists.
Dink's family and his supporters reject the premise of the retrial
that the defendants were part of a criminal conspiracy and argue that
the state was involved in what amounted to a terrorist conspiracy.
"Who could have effectively conducted an investigation of a murder
in which all bodies of the state were involved?" Dink's family said
in a letter published yesterday on the website of the Armenian Agos
newspaper.
"We, the Dink family, will not attend the hearings of the murder trial
which is beginning again and will not be exploited by a game of the
state machinery which mocks us." The letter said the courts had failed
to respond to the family's request to investigate links to the case
of people involved in the "Ergenekon" conspiracy to overthrow Prime
Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government.
More than 200 people, including a former military chief and scores of
other senior figures, were convicted in the Ergenekon case in August.
"This show must end, the real perpetrators must be brought to justice,"
Gulten Kaya, the widow of well-known Kurdish singer Ahmet Kaya,
told reporters outside the court.
The murderer, Ogun Samast, was 17 at the time of the killing and was
sentenced by a juvenile court to 23 years in prison in 2011. Last year
Yasin Hayal was sentenced to life in jail for instigating the killing.
At yesterday's hearing, Hayal denied that he was involved in any
criminal organisation involved in the murder. The case was adjourned
to December 3.
Gulf Times, Qatar
September 17, 2013 Tuesday
BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) MP and politician Sebahat Tuncel
(left) and CHP (Republican People's Party) MP Sezgin Tanrikulu(right)
chant slogans in front of the Caglayan Law Court in Istanbul.
By Ece Toksabay, Reuters/Istanbul A retrial over the murder of a
Turkish-Armenian journalist, that triggered huge protest rallies in
Turkey, opened yesterday with demonstrators outside the court accusing
authorities of covering up a conspiracy by nationalist elements in
the state apparatus.
Hrant Dink, shot dead outside the office of his journal Agos in January
2007, had angered nationalists as a critic of government policies
towards the country's 60,000 Christian Armenians and its diplomatic
standoff with neighbouring Armenia. He was repeatedly prosecuted for
"insulting Turkishness".
Around 200 demonstrators gathered outside the Istanbul court where
eight defendants were being retried after an appeals court deemed
they were part of a criminal conspiracy. This overturned an original
court ruling that those convicted over Dink's murder acted alone.
The crowd chanted "the murderer state will give account" and "we
are all Hrant, we are all Armenians", holding up banners in Turkish,
Armenian and Kurdish. They see Dink as victim of a shadowy 'deep state'
network of nationalist militants accused of killings of prominent
liberals and Kurdish nationalists.
Dink's family and his supporters reject the premise of the retrial
that the defendants were part of a criminal conspiracy and argue that
the state was involved in what amounted to a terrorist conspiracy.
"Who could have effectively conducted an investigation of a murder
in which all bodies of the state were involved?" Dink's family said
in a letter published yesterday on the website of the Armenian Agos
newspaper.
"We, the Dink family, will not attend the hearings of the murder trial
which is beginning again and will not be exploited by a game of the
state machinery which mocks us." The letter said the courts had failed
to respond to the family's request to investigate links to the case
of people involved in the "Ergenekon" conspiracy to overthrow Prime
Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government.
More than 200 people, including a former military chief and scores of
other senior figures, were convicted in the Ergenekon case in August.
"This show must end, the real perpetrators must be brought to justice,"
Gulten Kaya, the widow of well-known Kurdish singer Ahmet Kaya,
told reporters outside the court.
The murderer, Ogun Samast, was 17 at the time of the killing and was
sentenced by a juvenile court to 23 years in prison in 2011. Last year
Yasin Hayal was sentenced to life in jail for instigating the killing.
At yesterday's hearing, Hayal denied that he was involved in any
criminal organisation involved in the murder. The case was adjourned
to December 3.