Hrant Dink's family says court judgment on his murder is 'far from the truth'

Hrant Dink was killed in the heart of İstanbul on January 19, 2007, in front of his newspaper Agos, with two bullets fired from behind treacherously.

The murder happened after a three-year-long process of targeting and threats involving the General Staff, politicians, the judiciary, the media and some state-sponsored so-called non-governmental organizations.

The killed person left a note to all of us in the article titled "Why have I been chosen as the target?" which he wrote one week before his killing and explained this in his last speeches with these words: 'This is an operation of the depth of the state to make me know my place.'

None of the events, persons or relations that Hrant Dink mentioned in his last article had been included in the investigation for 14 years. Moreover, when many things that he mentioned in his article by his witnessing and intuition were later proved by documents...

The operation didn't end with the killing; it continued with neglect, cover-up, evidence spoliation and misdirection. It is not possible for a trial that does not address all this mechanism to convince either us or the public.

The judgment given today is quite far from this truth. Both understanding and explaining some sentence provisions are quite difficult. There are even verdicts that give the impression that not the evil itself but its leakage was punished.

At the point the trial has come, it is said that the groups defined as FETÖ, which caused the deaths of hundreds of our people and the injury of thousands with a despicable operation on July 15, 2016, also killed our Hrant in 2007.

If this is true, is the effective investigation that we had strived for and demanded since the beginning was carried out in a timely manner, we would not have lost so many lives in almost 10 years later. In this case, shouldn't an account of the lack of the timely investigation of Hrant Dink murder be given to the families and loved ones of hundreds of people?

In today's environment where the reputation of the judiciary is the lowest, by which court can a fair judgment be given? This environment is of course relieving for criminals... Unfortunately, a climate and ideology similar to that prevailed in the years when Hrant Dink was targeted and murder prevails today. What truth and justice can be talked about in such an environment? Could anybody say today, "Being an Armenian has no effect on the killing of Hrant Dink?" How can the racism ingrained in this mechanism be denied?

If this case is closed in its current state, if the deep state mechanism of years is called FETÖ and no effective investigation is carried out, who will be responsible for the lives that will be lost in the years to come? Just as the murderer was a child, FETÖ and Ergenekon are children as well. The mechanism on the other hand is much older. This mechanism should not be allowed to continue taking other lives.

The establishment of the climate of transparency, democracy and law as soon as possible is a need for all of us like air, like bread, like water. After all, what is hoped for is a confrontation: The society's confrontation with this crime, the criminal's confrontation with his crime and the institutions' drawing of the necessary lesson.

We, as his family, together with his friends and lawyers, with the strength of our friends whom we carried his coffin together with, will never give up our efforts to understand and tell and our legal struggle. Until the whole mechanism is exposed and made unusable."