New Investigation in Murder Case of Journalist Dink

The Istanbul Governorship Provincial Administration Board issued permission to an investigation regarding the assassination of Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink into alleged flaws and neglect of five former officials of the Istanbul Police Directorate, as it was suggested in a preliminary report. The decision came more than three years after the murder of then chief editor of the Armenian Agos newspaper Dink on 19 January 2007 in Istanbul. The people under investigation are former Police Chief İbrahim Pala, Chief Inspectors Volkan Altınbulak and İbrahim Şevki Eldivan and police officers Bahadır Tekin and Özcan Özkan.

The preliminary investigation had also included former Provincial Deputy Chief of Police and current Governor of Osmaniye (southern Turkey) Celalettin Cerrah, former deputy Şammaz Demirtaş, former Intelligence Branch Manager Ahmet İlhan Güler and former Deputy Branch Manager Bülent Köksal. However, the board did not issue permission to include these four people into the new investigation as well.

Cerrah was not able to follow up everything...

Governor Cerrah was excluded from the investigation for the following reasons: "He did not have the possibility to follow the entire procedures closely because of the intensity of his duty considering the difficulty of execution and since he was following the complex and various services in the city of Istanbul. He did not neglect his duties, make any mistake or conducted unlawful actions related to the subject of the investigation.".

Demirtaş's duty: "coordination of services"...

The decision for the new investigation was taken on 12 March 2010 and approved by Öznur Bolat, President of the Provincial Administration Board, on 2 April. Istanbul Deputy Chief of Police of the time and current Chief of Police in Rize, a city on the eastern Black Sea coast, was excluded from the investigation as well:

"It is impossible to work at the level of following the entire details and office works in all the branches. It was his duty to coordinate other units with the Intelligence Branch Directorate and to brief the Provincial Chief of Police. He was furthermore responsible for Financial, Narcotics and Organized Crime Branches".

"They pretended to observe Hayal"

The decision also mentions Yasin Hayal, one of the prime suspects in the Dink case as the "abetter" to the murder. It had previously been put on record that police officers Bahadır Tekin and Özcan Özkan had been sent from the Intelligence Branch of the Trabzon Police Directorate on 17 February 2006 to take considerable measures against Hayal. The current decision states though that they did not go to the address in Ümraniye (Istanbul's Anatolian side) as given in the according notification after the murder, but that "they kept a false record pretending that they went there".

The decision claims that the inspectors appointed both police officers for an observation of a person in Fatih (European side of Istanbul) on the same day, thus they could not take care of two assignments in one day.

Inspector Pala and Chief Inspectors Altunbulak and Eldivan are included into the investigation because they did not take any precautions in order to protect Dink despite notifications regarding the preparation of voice records of Hayal related to Dink.

However, the referring officials are expected to file an appeal against the decision of the investigation. In that case the file would be transferred to the Administrative Court. EÖ/VK)