HRANT DINK’S LAWYERS DEMAND DETAILS OF PHONE RECORDS
Tert.am
29.12.11
During the 23rd court hearing of slain Armenian journalist Hrant Dink
case, one of the lawyers of Dink family said the phone conversations
that Telecommunications Directorate (TIB) provided to the court do
not include all the records from the area.
Suspect Yasin Hayal is under pressure not to disclose significant
information, Fethiye Cetin, one of the prosecution lawyers representing
the family of Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist assassinated
in 2007, said yesterday.
“When we consider the four-year-long trial process, it seems apparent
we have not made any progress, even though all the guilty parties
are manifest,” lawyer Cetin told the Hurriyet Daily News.
The 23rd hearing of the Dink trial began yesterday at 11:05 a.m.,
approximately two hours late due to the delayed arrival of suspects
Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel. The hearing yielded no results, however,
and the case is still stuck in a deadlock.
“Yasin Hayal’s mental health is quite balanced. He can divulge a
lot of things, but he is under pressure from different quarters not
to talk. Nevertheless, he would be saying a lot if he could speak,”
Cetin said.
Cetin also said they had met with Bahattin Hayal, suspect Yasin Hayal’s
father, who had claimed to be in possession of important information
pertinent to the case. But he divulged nothing the prosecution did
not already know about, she said.
Meanwhile, a group of 200 people gathered in Istanbul’s BeÅ~_iktaÅ~_
district and marched toward the Istanbul’s Court for Serious Crimes
in protest of the apparent lack of progress in the case.
Demonstrators included Hrant Dink’s wife Rakel Dink and his brother
Orhan Dink, as well as Sezgin Tanrıkulu, the deputy leader of the
opposition People’s Republican Party (CHP), Levent Tuzel, an Istanbul
deputy of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), and other high-profile
figures.
“[Phone] records from the Telecommunications Directorate (TÄ°B)
dominated the public’s attention throughout this one year, and
especially since May. TÄ°B records were of course important, but it
should not be forgotten we are talking about thousands of records. The
truly important thing, we believe, was the silence of those caught
on camera footage on the day of the murder,” Cetin said.
The Dink family’s lawyers also raised an objection to the trial of the
suspects in the Black Sea province of Trabzon solely on the charge of
“dereliction of duty,” according to the Dogan news agency.
“These men have solely been tried on the charge of dereliction of
duty, whereas they are partners in manslaughter through dereliction,”
prosecution lawyer Bahri Belen said in relation to claims gendarmerie
commanders Ali Oz and Metin Yıldız had been notified about the
murder six months earlier by suspect CoÅ~_kun Ä°gci, Yasin Hayal’s
brother-in-law.
The Dink family’s lawyers had prepared a 200 page file connecting the
history of the Armenian issue with the murder and read the document’s
first half during the previous hearing.
While the first half of the file was primarily about the historical
dimension of the problem, the second half read a variety of other
topics, including indictments, the suspects’ testimonies and other
relevant assessments.
The Dink family’s lawyers also argued in favor of merging the two
separate case files in Istanbul and the Black Sea province of Samsun.
Dink, a Turkish journalist of Armenian origin, was the chief editor
for weekly Agos, a paper published in both Turkish and Armenian. He
was shot in front of his office in January 2007. Triggerman Ogun
Samast was sentenced to 22 years in prison last month for the murder.