The 14th hearing of the case related to the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was held at the Istanbul 14th High Criminal Court on Monday (12 July). Dink, founder and then editor-in-chief of the Armenian Agos newspaper, was killed on 19 January 2007 in front of his office in Istanbul.
The joint attorneys of the Dink family claimed that Dink had been targeted due to trials regarding press freedom. The lawyers called on the prosecutors to fulfil their duty in respect to threats against Dink voiced at the Istanbul Governorship prior to his death.
The Dink family was represented by the lawyers Fethiye Çetin, Filiz Kerestecioğlu, Bahri Bayram Belen, İnci İşbulur, Arzu Becerik and Kezban Hatemi.
The lawyers stated that the former Governor of Istanbul, Muavini Erhan Güngör, was allegedly involved in both the targeting and the threatening of Dink. They demanded to include Güngör in the case as well as Özer Yılmaz, former Istanbul Regional Deputy Chief of the National Intelligence Agency (MİT), Levent Temiz, former head of the "Grey Wolves", and Ergenekon case defendants Kemal Kerinçsiz and Erhan Timuroğlu.
The lawyers emphasized that Özer Yılmaz, Kemal Kerinçsiz and Erhan Timuroğlu are also among the defendants of the Ergenekon case. Ergenekon is a clandestine terrorist organization charged with various crimes staged for the ultimate purpose of triggering a military coup.
Lawyer Fethiye Çetin read out two articles written by Hrant Dink before he was killed entitled "The unease of the dove of my mood" and "Why I was shown as a target".
"In terms of intelligence logic I should be killed"
Erhan Tuncel said in his speech of defence that he had made four important phone calls with a police officer called Mehmet Ayhan till December 2006, which had not been included in the file.
According to Tuncel, reports of the Prime Ministry Inspection Board and other authorities confirmed that "connections to an assistant informant had been cut and an interruption in the flow of information occurred".
"I told everybody except one person that Hrant Dink would be killed with a bullet in his neck in front of the Agos newspaper. In terms of intelligence logic I should be killed. I have been detained for 43 months for a crime that I did not commit. [...]"
Gendarmerie disproved statement of witness Özen
In the previous hearing on 10 May, witness Erhan Özen had stated that he had received payments from the Istanbul Gendarmerie Central Command and that he had worked as an informant. Thereupon, the court had requested related information from the Istanbul Provincial Gendarmerie Central Command.
The response sent by the Gendarmerie General Command disproved Özen's statement. It read, "Özen did not work as an informant. He did not receive any payments and was not given a code number".
The prosecutor requested to keep prime suspects Erhan Tuncel, Yasin Hayal and Ogün Samast in detention and to hear Sabri Uzun, former head of the intelligence office, at court. Sabri had stated in previous hearings, "There was the written report notifying about a 'crucial action to be done' which referred to the planned murder of Dink. If this report had reached me before it was archived, this would not have happened". To the contrary of the prosecutor's request, the court does not believe that hearing Uzun for one more time would bring any new results.
The court refrained from hearing witness Emsale Çakmakçı at court. The directive for the interrogation of Ergün Çağatay will be renewed.
The court postponed the announcement of its decisions to the coming hearing on 25 October. (EÖ/BB/VK)
