Dink Family Demand New Investigation

The family of slain journalist Hrant Dink submitted a petition to launch an investigation about officers of the Police and the Gendarmerie in Trabzon (eastern Black Sea coast) and Istanbul. The request comes four years after Dink, then Editor-in-Chief of the Armenian Agos newspaper, was assassinated in front of his office in Istanbul on 19 January 2007.

After the conviction of Turkey by the European Court of Human Rights regarding the murder of the Turkish-Armenian journalist, the Dink family requested to have a special authority prosecutor appointed for the investigation.

The petition was submitted by Dink's widow Rakel Dink, their grown up children Delal, Arat and Sera Dink and the journalist's brother, Hosrof Dink. They demand the investigation into the activities prior to the murder of 28 people from the Trabzon Gendarmerie, the Istanbul Police Directorate Anti-Terror Branch and the Trabzon Police Directorate Anti-Terror Branch; among them the former Governor of Istanbul, Muammer Güler, the former Istanbul Chief of Police, Celalettin Cerrah, the former Istanbul Chief of Security, İbrahim Pala, Ramazan Akyürek as the former Head of the Intelligence Department and the former Trabzon Chief of Police, Muhittin Zenit as a former officer of the Trabzon Police Intelligence Department and Colonel Ali Öz, the former Trabzon Gendarmerie Regiment Commander.

The ECHR had reached the opinion that the official authorities had information about an impending attack against Dink. Turkey was convicted by the Strasbourg court by reason of failure to prevent the murder although the Trabzon Police, the Trabzon Gendarmerie and the Istanbul Police had information about an imminent attempt on Dink's life.

According to the ECHR's decision, the official authorities should have assumed responsibility for the protection of Dink but did not take the necessary precautions to prevent the murder.

With their petition, the Dink family requested that domestic law abide by the decision of the ECHR. The petition read, "The suspects who assisted the perpetrators before the murder committed further crimes with the aim to conceal their role in the murder after it happened and to conceal the real perpetrators".

"The ECHR decision conveys the responsibility to launch a new investigation. The violation of an individual's right to life cannot merely be measured in compensation", the petition continued.

"If the suspects had evaluated the knowledge they obtained and had taken precautions, they would have prevented the murder of Hrant Dink. They did not. False documents were prepared, illegal statements were put forward, information and documents were concealed from the authorities during the investigation, subordinates were forced to give false statements and duties were neglected intentionally; all this was part of realising the action of killing a person as a result of an "organization". The crimes committed by the Tarbzon Gendarmerie officers have to be scrutinized in the scope of a new and complete investigation", it was requested in the petition. (AS/EÖ/VK)