Dink’s Friends: Retrial Should Satisfy Public Opinion

DINK’S FRIENDS: RETRIAL SHOULD SATISFY PUBLIC OPINION

10:19 13.02.2014

Hrant Dink

Speaking after the fourth hearing of the retrial into the assassination
of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, friends of the murdered
journalist said on Wednesday that the retrial should bring about
justice and satisfy the public, Today’s Zaman reports.

In May 2013, the Supreme Court of Appeals overturned a court’s original
ruling which dismissed the existence of an organized criminal network
in the case.

Speaking in behalf of Dink’s friends, Agos newspaper columnist
Karin KarakaÅ~_lı told the press that seven years had passed since
the murder and through all that time, state institutions have been
pointing at each other to acquit themselves in the eyes of the public.

Dink was shot by an ultranationalist teenager, Ogun Samast, on Jan.

19, 2007, in front of the Agos newspaper’s office, where he served as
editor-in-chief. In January 2012, a court ruled on life imprisonment
for Yasin Hayal on charges of instigating the murder; another suspect,
Erhan Tuncel, was acquitted of murder charges.

The lower court, which found no evidence that a terrorist organization
was involved in Dink’s assassination, had acquitted the suspects
of claims that they had formed a terrorist organization. The court
did, however, say they were guilty of forming an illegal and armed
organization to commit a crime, prohibited under Article 220 of the
Turkish Penal Code (TCK). However, after the decision of the Supreme
Court of Appeals, a retrial started in May.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress