POLICE DESTROY FILE ON DINK MURDER SUSPECT
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Oct 4 2007
The police file on a prime suspect in the murder case of
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink has been destroyed on grounds
that the file was a "state secret," the private NTV station reported
on Wednesday.
The Ýstanbul court, which is currently trying 19 suspects in the
murder of Dink, who was shot outside his newspaper’s office by an
ultranationalist teenager in January of this year, had not demanded to
see the police files on Erhan Tuncel, a former police informant facing
trial for having incited the gunman to kill Dink. The court’s request
was turned down by the Intelligence Department, where Tuncel’s file is
stored, which said the document was destroyed to protect state secrets.
The prosecutors carrying out the investigation had seen the police
file on Tuncel, a former informant who worked for the Trabzon police.
However, the file was apparently destroyed before the court had a
chance to see the document. Erdal Doðan, a lawyer representing the
Dink family, said this was a "legal scandal." The court denied Doðan’s
request for the file a second time, saying it was "confidential." Doðan
said their demands would continue. "This secret cannot be hidden from
the court even though it is a state secret.
This is a violation of the Law of Procedures," he said.
Prior to the second hearing of the trial, which was on Monday, tape
recordings of a phone conversation between police officer Muhittin
Zenit and Tuncel were leaked to the media. The conversation suggests
that Zenit knew about the plot to murder Dink earlier. However, the
request of Dink’s family lawyers to start an investigation into police
officer Zenit in Monday’s hearing was overruled, the report said.
The controversy over Tuncel’s file is likely to deepen concerns over
a possible cover-up by state authorities in the murder. Dink’s lawyers
have complained that the murder has not been properly investigated and
have expressed fears for the independence of the court, reflecting
concerns about the possible involvement of Turkey’s so-called "deep
state." The "deep state" is a term coined to describe hard-line
nationalists in the bureaucracy and security forces who are prepared
to subvert the law for their own political ends.
There were also reports in the Turkish press suggesting that the
teenager accused of killing Dink, identified as O.S., was probably
attempting to mislead the judges in hopes of winning a reduction
in his sentence when he told the court during Monday’s hearing that
he regretted his actions and claimed he had carried out the slaying
under the influence of drugs.
Blood tests taken immediately after his arrest less than 24 hours
after the murder revealed that he had not taken drugs prior to the
crime, the reports said.
–Boundary_(ID_miopp/aQSWFVkLdF6fdtyQ)–