WHAT DO HRANT’S FRIENDS SAY?
by ORHAN KEMAL CENGÄ°Z
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Nov 15 2011
On Nov. 14 the Istanbul Criminal Court held the 21st hearing in
the Hrant Dink murder case. At this hearing friends of Hrant Dink,
a group that has been following and monitoring the case since the
very beginning, submitted to the court their “alternative opinion”
about the case.
If you remember in an earlier hearing the prosecutor had submitted an
“opinion” to the court in which he claimed that Hrant Dink’s murder
had been executed by a cell of Ergenekon; however, he admitted that
he was unable to establish any concrete links. This “opinion” by the
prosecutor created outrage in everyone following this case.
Can a prosecutor claim that a murder is connected to a larger network
and then leave at that with the excuse that he cannot make any
concrete links? Are these links so elusive to discover? Is this more
a confession by the prosecutor about the system in which he operates?
Did the prosecutor and the court put enough effort into uncovering
these so-called links? In this last hearing Hrant’s friends submitted
a symbolic alternative opinion in which they tried to answer these
questions. I have summarized their opinion for you below. I agree
with everything they say:
1. The people who killed Hrant were people who had been under the
control of the state for a long time. …Officers and chiefs from
the Trabzon police force who knew details about how the murder was
to be carried out have not even been properly questioned.
There has also been no serious, in-depth investigation into the
Ä°stanbul police force, which possessed information relating to the
murder and not only did nothing to prevent it but also covered up
evidence afterwards.
2. While a special team of prosecutors ought to have been appointed
to consider all of this in depth and all these facts in light of each
other, this was not in fact seen as necessary.
3. Just as these fragmented, divided and flimsily run cases were not
consolidated, judges and prosecutors seemed to have been in a race
to see who could deny requests by lawyers faster.
4. In the period immediately following the murder, support from some
clerks of the state for this murder was clear for all to see. The
fact that some police officers and gendarmerie officers who posed
like heroes with the murderer were never punished has become one of
the indisputable symbols of this period.
5. After the murder, state inspectors personally reported that police
had destroyed and falsified some evidence. However, no one was ever
seriously questioned about this. The questioning and interrogations
that did take place were quickly brushed over. Video camera recordings
showing exactly what happened at the time and location of the murder
happened to have been in police hands from the very first day but
the court never took possession of these recordings and never looked
at them.
6. The Telecommunications Directorate (TIB) has, since the start of
the case, worked less to reveal the murder, and more to see the case
stop at one point and not go any deeper.
7. There has been a special effort made to block the path leading to
this murder, to protect the murderers involved, to ignore the murder,
to direct forces behind scenes, to destroy evidence, to not allow
those responsible to be questioned… All of these factors have been
overseen in a coordinated manner and if you add to this the warning
from the military’s General Staff headquarters regarding the silencing
of Hrant, the Supreme Court of Appeals that condemned him for words
he never said and thus made him a target, the police who hid and
manipulated evidence… you can actually easily see the umbrella of
the state over this murder.
8. The facts that the governor who was responsible when Hrant was
threatened by two MÄ°T agents in his office is today a deputy in the
ruling party, and that the former Ä°stanbul police chief, who said
“this is not the work of the PKK” thus creating a scandal, is now a
governor, are in themselves clear enough clues to this all.
9. Concrete details about this case, which we will remind you of a
little later, will show without a doubt the truth what our research
has revealed.
10. It is clear that the suspects on trial in this murder case had ties
not only with the Ergenekon group but with many officials, and that an
organized effort in not only Hrant’s murder but also to cover up and
destroy evidence in the wake of his murder included state officials,
as well as the police, gendarme, city leaders, government and courts
for protecting them, in other words, the state.
11. Because of their participation in the process that slowly turned
Hrant into a target, many newspaper and television executives should
be questioned and brought to trial together with state officials
responsible for this murder.
In conclusion, those who had Hrant killed are a part of the state
and there are many pieces of clear evidence to support this allegation.