Trabzon Police Knew Dink’s Murder A Year Before It Took Place

The trial of the accused gendarmerie petty officer Okan Şimşek and the gendarmerie master sergeant Veysel Şahin continues at Trabzon. Both gendarmerie officials are accused of negligence of duty before the murder of Hrant Dink, the founder and chief editor of Agos, the Armenian-Turkish weekly, who was slained brutally on February 19, 2007.

Veysel Şahin, gendarmerie sergeant major, and Hacı Ömer Ünalır, the gendarmerie master sergeant, both stationed at Trabzon Gendarmerie Command Post, were present at the court as witnesses held yesterday (June 19).

Yılmaz and Ünalır’s statements confirmed that Dink’s murder at Istanbul was accomplished owing to the negligence of the high level gendarmerie authorities; foremost among them was Trabzon Gendarmerie Commander Colonel Ali Öz. In yesterday’s hearing, Ünalır said that the warnings about the murder were received a year before.  

Yılmaz: Ali Öz said “let us discuss this in private”

Yılmaz said that the first time he heard about the intelligence report was in August 2006 from Petty Officer Şimşek and that the information that Yasin Hayal was planning an assassination, which Şimşek was planning to bring up during the meeting, was raised by Metin Yıldız, the branch head of the intelligence at the time.

“When the subject brought up, our regiment commander Ali Öz closed the subject by saying that we should discuss it in private. I had the chance to meet Okan Şimşek two or three days later. He told me the incident in more detail. He said that Hayal was planning to murder the Agos writer Krant Dink together with three or four of his friends. We put in writing what Şimşek told me. When we investigated the matter further, we found out that there was such a newspaper and such a journalist. However, his name was not Krant, but Hrant.”

Yılmaz said that when he took some time off and went on a vacation for a short time, he called Ünalır and asked him if he had received an order regarding Hayal. In return, Ünalır told him that he had met with Şimşek and learned that the director had told Şimşek that they were going to send them an order about the subject.

Furthermore, Yılmaz said that Ünalır called him on the day (January 19, 2007) the journalist was shot and told him to turn on the TV. Upon seeing the news, he went to the center and continued watching the news there: “We went to the Trabzon Police Department. There I found out that they had taken O.S.’s father’s statement. We did not enter the room where the statement was being taken.”

He added that when they returned to the Gendarmerie Command Post he saw Şimşek, Şahin, Metin, the branch director, and Gazi Günay, the Law and Order Commander, preparing an intelligence form in order to pass it to their superiors: “We went back to the Police Department after we saw this.”

Ünalır: We received the order six months before the incident and the police received it a year before

Ünalır, who stated in his statement that they received the intelligence about the murder six months before the incident, also said that he found out, when he was at the Police department, that the police had received this information a year before the incident and that he did not take any part in the operations after this.

Answering a question asked by Dink’s lawyers Ergin Cinmen and Hakan Bakırcıoğlu, Ünalır said, “In our work, in order to have a terrorist act, there needs to be an organization. Dink’s murder was not a terrorist act, but a law and order case.”

The court decided to wait for the replies to its letters that were sent to take instructed statements. The trial will continue in September. (EÖ/EZÖ/TB)