DINK MURDER SUSPECT SAYS LIFE IS UNDER THREAT

Journal of Turkish Weekly
Jan 11 2012

During the ongoing murder case of journalist Hrant Dink, suspect
Yasin Hayal says that he has been used by the Turkish Republic and
claims his life is in danger

During the 24th hearing of the Hrant Dink case, suspect Yasin Hayal
claimed he was being threatened by prison guards and requested they
be interrogated.

“I have been used by the Turkish Republic, and now they want to
eliminate me. My life is in danger and the state will be responsible
if anything happens to me,” suspect Hayal said in court.

Hayal further alleged that many figures ranging from Erhan Tuncel to
Ramazan Akyurek had taken advantage of him and exploited his poverty.

“Tuncel persuaded me that our lives would be much better,” he said.

“I never knew Tuncel was a state agent. I respected him because he
was the head of Alperen Ocakları [an extreme right-wing group]. I met
him in 2002 and he introduced me to a lot of figures, including police
officers. I do not recall any names, however. I was involved directly
with Tuncel, and you ought to ask him about the names,” Hayal said.

Hayal also indicated they had a meeting in the Black Sea province of
Trabzon with some people who had arrived from Istanbul, and it was
here that Ogun Samast was selected as the triggerman.

Phone records

Meanwhile, the phone records provided to the court by Turkey’s
Telecommunications Directorate (TÄ°B) included the numbers of certain
individuals who have been in contact with case suspects, said one
of the defendant’s lawyers in the case of murdered Turkish-Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink.

“It is not true that there was no one connected to the suspects
being tried in your court in the records sent by the TÄ°B, containing
some 6,235 interviews and 9,300 numbers. The existence of a direct
connection between case suspects and certain phone numbers in the
records has been established,” said Fethiye Cetin, one of the Dink
family’s lawyers, during the 24th hearing of the trial yesterday.

Five persons bearing a connection to the suspects and who were present
at the crime scene have been identified through examining the records,
Cetin said, adding that the connection between case suspects and
another 14 persons who were missing from the crime scene but were
called from there had also been determined.

Tuncel’s lawyer, Erdogan Soruklu, also agreed with the Dink lawyers
and said some of the phone records were deleted.

The prosecutor’s office has accepted the lawyers’ demand to examine
the phone records of individuals allegedly connected to the case
suspects in detail and subsequently ruled to request the relevant
information from the TÄ°B. Still, prosecutor Hikmet Usta denied the
lawyers’ claims and said they previously directed all the records to
counterterrorism police and all records were analyzed.

Usta further claimed Dink was not killed due to his Armenian identity;
the prosecutor said his murder was part of a political murder tradition
related to a terror organization within the state.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress