Court Refuses To Combine The Trabzon Gendarmerie Case With Dink’s Murder

In the sixth hearing, Istanbul’s 14th High Criminal Court, which is trying the Dink murder case, decided to continue keeping the eight accused under arrest.

In spite of the constant demands by Dink’s lawyers, the court refused to combine the Trabzon Gendarmerie case with the Din murder case.

The court heard the testimony of Coşkun İğci, a former gendarmerie informant and the ex-husband of Yasin Hayal’s aunt.

The next hearing will be on October 13.  

İğci said that he did his duty as a citizen and tried to prevent Hayal from carrying out Dink’s murder. He further added that once he realized he could not prevent him anymore, he informed the gendarmerie about Hayal’s plans and he was also able to delay the murder for one, one a half months up until October 2006 by telling Hayal that he was going to buy a gun. After this, he said, he never saw Hayal anymore.  

İğci: I met with the gendarmerie authorities five, six times

İğci repeated the same testimony that he gave during the Trabzon trial and said that among the accused, he only knew Ahmet İskender.

He told Bahri Bayram Belen, one of Dink’s lawyers, that he knew the gendarmerie people with whom he was in touch since 2004 and he met with them five, six times after the intelligence reports about Yasin Hayal.

The court also heard, in its first session, Hakkı Bahadır Cihan, son of Yaşar Cihan, a provincial chairperson of the Great Unity Party (BBP). He told the court that there was no connection between the BBP and the “Alperen Ocakları” (Hero-Dervish Hearths), claiming that Metin Gündoğdu’s statement “our people were going to do the Dink job, they messed it up” was transmitted wrongly.

Cihan refused the allegation that Tuncel had the keys to the “Alperen Ocakları”. Arzu Becerik, one of Dink’s lawyers, confronted him by asking the question how he, as the person  responsible for the organization of the Hearths, did not even know that Yasin Hayal was running Alperen’s tea service facility.

The lawyers also asked Cihan why he called Erhan Tuncel after the murder. His reply was for “personal curiosity.”

Furthermore, Cihan added that he met Hayal in “Nizam-ı Alem” (roughly translated as the World/the Imperial Standard) hearths, became close friends with him and the relationship came to an end once Hayal went away to do his military service and he enrolled in a university. He said that he did not remember where he met Erhan Tuncel.

In the afternoon part of the trial, the court heard the testimonies of Ogün Samast’s relatives Yaşar Samast and Aslan Samast, Ahmet Emin Özmete, who saw Ogün Samast running after the murder, Agos employee İnan Murat and Agos advertisement section employee Kristin Dellaloğlu.

Agos employees Murat and Dellaloğlu identified Ogün Samast as the person who visited the newspaper by introducing himself as a student in Ankara University and Özmete confirmed that he was the one running on Şafak Street right next to the Agos building after the murder.

In the meantime, Tuncel rejected the report that claimed that his relation with the police was ended on November 17, 2006, asserting that this report was prepared to clear the police officers of the responsibility.

“Who do you represent?”

Tuncel said that never a written report was demanded from him, what the judge read was a report made up of all the information that was collected in one month.

He said he could not accept the allegations since it was in his best interest that the truth came out, because his psychology was messed up after one and half years in jail. He asserted that “whether you accept it or not, I represent some people here.”

Lawyer Hatemi demanded that the court should hear the testimony of the individuals stated in Tuncel’s petition

Reminding the court that Tncel was trying to send a message to certain places at every opportunity he gets, Kezban Hatemi, one of Dink’s lawyers, demanded from the court that those who were mentioned in Tuncel’s petition presented on Jun 26, 2008 be brought to the court to be listened.

In the morning session of the trial, Yasin Hayal’s lawyer Fuat Turgut also asked some provoking questions to accused Erhan Tuncel and Ogün Samast.

Lawyer Turgut told Tuncel that he had an Israeli girlfriend and asked him if he ever thought that she could be from the Israeli secret service.

Tuncel said that these questions were not appropriate, since they were about his private life, and added that she was instead the daughter of the Israeli president, he did not know at the moment.

Lawyer Turgut also asked Samast if the first person he met with was Etyen Mahçupyan; his response was “no, Jennifer Lopez.”

Also during the trial, Yasin Hayal managed to send a greeting to Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu, head of the BBP, by shouting “I salute the leader of the noble Turkish people Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu. Muslims, Alperens, have your hearts be at ease; this caravan will keep on moving until the BBP rules.” (EÖ/NZ/TB)