Today’s Zaman, Turkey
July 4 2007
Police tell court no `big brother’ in Dink murder
An Ýstanbul court has decided to broaden the investigation into the
killing of journalist Hrant Dink to consider allegations of official
negligence in connection with the murder, something the slain
journalist’s lawyers say creates room for optimism.
However, an information note sent by the most senior police
authority, the National Security Directorate, to the court indicated
that it might yet be too early to express any optimism. The note,
written by police in response to a query from the court hearing,
asserted that Yasin Hayal, one of the chief suspects in the case, had
formed and led a criminal gang based on "friendship ties" to the
other suspects in order to stage an act directed against Dink.
The reply comes one day after Dink’s lawyers asserted that a much
bigger and organized group was behind the 18 suspects standing trial
with links to individuals in the police and gendarmerie forces.
The court had asked for information from the National Security
Directorate about a "terrorist organization" the suspects Erhan
Tuncel, Yasil Hayal, O.S. and others were allegedly assisting.
The police response stated that Hayal was the "leader" of the group
with authority to issue orders to all of the remaining members and
that he had no links to any other groups.
The police response also said the local police department in Trabzon
had used Tuncel as a "source of intelligence" but had cut all contact
with him in November 2006.
Eighteen young men charged with the assassination of the
journalist-cum-newspaper editor, gunned down in the street on Jan.
19, went on trial in Ýstanbul on Monday in what has been described as
a critical test for Turkey’s judiciary.
After a 12-hour hearing on the opening day of the trial, the court
released four of the 18 suspects implicated in the killing until the
resumption of the trial on Oct. 1.
The trial is taking place behind closed doors because O.S., the
17-year-old who confessed to shooting the journalist, is a minor.
Ultranationalists Erhan Tuncel, a university student, and Yasin
Hayal, who served time for the 2004 bombing of a McDonald’s, are
charged with planning the crime and for membership of an illegal
organization.
The defendants include a political figure, Yaþar Cihan, chairman of a
local branch of the ultranationalist Grand Unity Party (BBP), who is
accused of giving money to Hayal after the shooting.
Dink’s lawyers’ main concern is that the trial will not get to the
heart of the hate crime they say was well organized by a network of
ultranationalists in collaboration with individuals with access to
state power. Shortly after the killing, a video surfaced showing the
main suspect holding the Turkish flag, flanked by a police and
gendarmerie officer either side. Security officials were fired over
the incident.
Fethiye Çetin, a lawyer for the Dink family, held a press conference
on Tuesday and reiterated the claim that those standing trial as
suspects were not the real inciters of the Dink assassination. She
demanded that gendarmerie and police officials who were responsible
for negligence be included in the trial as suspects. Çetin
highlighted that in testimonies delivered before the court on Monday,
all suspects said "they were ordered by a group inside the police
department."
Referring to comments made by a lawyer representing Hayal praising
two former army officers, Çetin vowed they would go after the links
between the mentioned officers and the lawyer.
Hayal’s lawyer, Fuat Turgut, on Monday publicly praised Muzaffer
Tekin, a retired captain under arrest for possession of an arms depot
found in his residence, and also retired Maj. Fikret Emek, revealed
to be the owner of another house used to store guns and ammunition.
Hayal’s lawyer referred to the two former officers as "true
patriots." Tekin was a chief suspect in a Council of State attack
last year in which a judge was shot dead by a gunman apparently
opposing the court’s ruling on teachers’ rights to wear a headscarf
outside their school.
Speaking on behalf of her plaintiffs, Dink’s family, she said she
would object to the release of some of the suspects on Monday.
"This is why we have been demanding all along that the real inciters
–particularly those individuals inside the gendarmerie and the
police whose ties with the suspects have been confirmed, and who took
no measures against the Dink murder despite having had the
intelligence on its details — be brought to court on charges of
having allowed the crime to occur, either through negligence or
through involvement."
Çetin said she still had hope for a fair outcome since the court had
accepted their demand to widen the investigation.
Testimonies of the suspects
During the first day of the trial, O.S. exercised his legal right to
remain silent, said lawyer Çetin in a previous statement she made to
the press on Monday.
Four of the defendants, Erhan Tuncel, Yasin Hayal, Ersin Yolcu and
Ahmet Iskender, testified, and two others asked for lawyers before
speaking, she told press reporters outside the courthouse.
O.S. previously confessed to the killing in his initial testimony to
the police back in January, claiming he was angered by Dink’s
writings on Armenian history and came to Istanbul from his Black Sea
hometown of Trabzon to kill him.
Bahri Belen, a lawyer representing the Dink family, described the
latest development in the court case as being "significant," adding
his opinion that the court had agreed to extend the investigation
"thinking it might help the material truth to come out." Belen was
speaking to journalists on Monday at the courthouse shortly after the
hearing.
Belen also informed the press of the content of the suspects’
testimonies during the hearing. He said there were serious
inconsistencies in their versions of the events, with Tuncel saying
that he "did not have anything to do with the incident," while Hayal
asserted that "this incident was planned by Erhan Tuncel, who is a
police informant."
Hayal admitted his crime, self-critically accepting that he had been
used, the Cihan news agency reported him as saying.
Lawyer Turgut, representing Hayal, commented, "There is only one
fact, Yasin Hayal and O.S., who pulled the trigger, were exploited."
Turgut expressed that the two young men were "manipulated by some who
exploited their patriotic and nationalist feelings." In response to
the question of who might have used the two suspects, Turgut said:
"The same powers that used Erhan Tuncel. In my opinion, Tuncel was
protected at the time of the McDonald’s bombing." In response to
whether he was accusing the police department, Turgut said "no" but
added that those responsible could only be a couple of "rotten
apples" from the police. "If there is an element of organized crime
here, it should be seen as beginning with Tuncel and going higher
up," he said.
Meanwhile, a statement sent to the court by the Trabzon police said
that their department had ceased all contact with Tuncel in 2002.
Tuncel’s father, Ali Rýza Tuncel, speaking to members of the press at
the courthouse, said: "My son hasn’t done anything. My son warned the
necessary authorities, but the other side did not accept [his
warnings]. The state should not be blamed for any of this, either."
The nationalist lawyer also said BBP member Cihan’s prosecution was
an attempt to target Turkish nationalism and accused some 100 lawyers
working on behalf of Dink’s case of "defaming nationalism." He said
Cihan was a regular donator to the poor, and one of the families he
had helped happened to be that of Hayal.
The court requested video recordings made of protests against a
controversial conference held at Bilgi University last year, protests
in front of the Agos newspaper office after it had printed a news
story questioning the ethnicity of Atatürk’s daughter and coverage of
Monday’s protests in front of the courthouse where demonstrators
demanded justice for Hrant Dink, sources said.
The judges were reported to have demanded the identities of two
police officers who were present in the room with the Ýstanbul deputy
governor during a meeting with Hrant Dink, during which allegedly one
of the officials threatened Dink with having to face the consequences
if he was not more reserved in his coverage of Armenian genocide
claims.
The court accepted the demand of a lawyer representing O.S. to order
a full psychiatric examination for his client and ruled that eight
individuals, mentioned as "intelligence officers with the police" in
Tuncel’s testimony might be called as witnesses.
04.07.2007
E. BARIÞ ALTINTAÞ ÝSTANBUL