Trabzon Gendarmerie Officials To Be Investigated For Their Role In Dink's Murder

Ministry of Interior Inspectors asked for permission to conduct an investigation against Colonel Ali Öz, who was Trabzon’s Provincial Gendarmerie Commander at the time of Hrant Dink’s murder, Captain Metin Yıldız, who was the Intelligence Director of the same command post, and five other gendarmerie officials.

According to Tolga Şardan’s report from daily Milliyet, in addition to Öz and Yıldız, the inspectors demanded permission to investigate those five gendarmerie officials who turned all the information gathered about the murder plan into a document supposedly received after the murder.

Lawyer Çetin: We should be able to discuss the statements given to the inspectors

Fethiye Çetin, one of the lawyers for the Dink family, said that they were following the news about the inspectors from the media, since they received no notification about it. She told Bianet that the report was going to be submitted to Trabzon Governorship’s Provincial Administrative Council and they were planning to get involved depending on the decision of the council.

“To know how these people answered inspectors’ questions, we need to receive a copy of the report. We must discuss the allegations mutually.”

When Trabzon Gendarmerie officials Okan Şimşek and Veysel Şahin confessed that they had conveyed the information about the murder plan to their superiors and that their superiors had told them not to talk about this with anyone, Trabzon Prosecutor asked for permission to launch an investigation about Colonel Öz and Captain Yıldız.

The hearing for the case of “memento picture” with Ogün Samast will be in September

The trial of the two police officers who had their picture taken with Ogün Samast, Hrant Dink’s murder suspect, with a flag that said “Motherland is sacred; it cannot be left to its destiny”was held  on July 9.

The court rejected the demands by the lawyers of the Dink family that both the police officers who had their picture taken with Samast and all the officers who were on duty on that day should be summoned as witnesses and that the digital records should be given to them, too. The trial will continue on September 13.

Samsun Public Prosecutor filed the lawsuit not because so many police officers had their pictures taken with Samast on January 20, 2007, but because the pictures were taken at the teahouse at the Department of Fight Against Terror (TEM) rather than at the detention center of the police department and they had appeared in the media afterwards.  

The prosecutor asked for six months to two year prison sentence for Metin Balta, TEM’s acting branch director, for “misconduct in office” since he allowed the picture takings on January 20 and for one to five year prison sentence for police chief İbrahim Fırat for “violating the secrecy of the investigation as he let suspect’s pictures reach the media.” (EÖ/TB)