TURKEY CHARGES 11TH SUSPECT OVER MURDER OF JOURNALIST
Agence France Presse — English
April 11, 2007 Wednesday 4:02 PM GMT
An Istanbul court on Wednesday charged an eleventh suspect over
the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, Anatolia news
agency reported.
The court charged Mustafa Ozturk with being an accomplice in the
January 19 killing and aiding a criminal organisation. It remanded
him in custody pending trial.
Ozturk had been questioned by police in February and was subsequently
released by a court, but the prosecutor in charge of the investigation
appealed and secured an arrest warrant in his name.
He was caught last month in a house raid in the eastern city of
Erzurum.
Among the 11 suspects is the alleged assailant, a 17-year-old jobless
secondary school graduate who officials say has confessed to gunning
down Dink, 52, outside the offices of his Turkish-Armenian weekly
Agos in Istanbul.
Prosecutors have yet to complete their indictment on Dink’s murder.
Dink was branded a traitor by nationalists for urging open debate
on the World War I massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire,
which he labelled as genocide, a label that Ankara fiercely rejects.
He was given a suspended six-month sentence last year for "insulting
Turkishness" under a penal code article that has been used to prosecute
a number of intellectuals and raised alarms about freedom of speech
in Turkey.
Disclaimer: This article was contributed and translated into English by Tamamian Anna. While we strive for quality, the views and accuracy of the content remain the responsibility of the contributor. Please verify all facts independently before reposting or citing.
Direct link to this article: https://www.armenianclub.com/2007/04/13/turkey-charges-11th-suspect-over-murder-of-journalist/