An indictment against public officials charged with misconduct and negligence in the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in 2007 has finally been accepted by the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, after its second rejection last month.
The İstanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office returned the indictment two times to public prosecutor Gökalp Kökçü, who is overseeing the investigation, for allegedly including the names of pro-government police officers as suspects and demanding a prison sentence of up to 25 years for Police Chief Engin Dinç, one of the suspects.
Dinç, currently the head of the National Police Department’s intelligence unit, led the Trabzon Police Department’s intelligence unit at the time of Dink’s murder in 2007.
After its approval, the indictment was sent to the İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court, which hears terror cases. The prosecutor, however, requested the trial be merged with the main Dink murder trial, held at the İstanbul 5th High Criminal Court.
The court has 15 days to either accept or reject the indictment.
The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office returned Kökçü’s first indictment on Oct. 19, on the grounds that the indictment was “deficient.” After changing the indictment, Kökçü sent a new version of the 150-page document to the prosecutor’s office on Oct. 21.
In the altered indictment, Kökçü requested that the investigation be merged with the trial of those accused of Dink’s assassination. In this trial Ogün Samast, Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel stand accused.
On Nov. 2, the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office returned the altered indictment to Kökçü, again, on the grounds that the indictment was still “deficient.” It has been claimed that the prosecutor’s office returned the indictment because it included Dinç, who is known to be close to the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), among other state officials who are suspected of being negligent and engaging in misconduct regarding the Dink murder.
According to the claims, the prosecutor’s office allegedly asked Kökçü to remove some names from the list of suspects. There were 25 state officials among the suspects in the investigation. Among those were Dinç, former İstanbul Police Chief Celalettin Cerrah, former İstanbul Police Department Intelligence Unit Chief Ahmet İlhan Güler, the former head of the National Police Department’s intelligence unit Ramazan Akyürek and former İstanbul Police Department Intelligence Bureau Chief Ali Fuat Yılmazer. Those suspects face charges of “forming an organization to commit crime” and “voluntary manslaughter.”
Media reports revealed that Dinç testified to the İstanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office secretly in September and that the Trabzon Police Department’s intelligence unit received intelligence on a probable assassination of Dink in Trabzon, which was sent to İstanbul police in a letter on Feb. 17, 2006. “I also phoned the chief of the intelligence unit of the İstanbul Police Department about the information,” Dinç said in his testimony.
However, during the trial in December 2014, Cerrah and Güler stated in their testimonies that they had not received any intelligence about Dink’s assassination before the murder took place in 2007.
Dink was shot and killed in 2007 by Samast, an ultranationalist teenager. Later, Samast and 18 others were brought to trial. Hayal was sentenced to life in prison for inciting Samast to commit murder.
The retrial began in September 2014, when the İstanbul 5th High Criminal Court complied with a ruling from the Supreme Court of Appeals from May 2013, which overturned a lower court’s ruling that acquitted the suspects in the Dink murder case of charges of forming a terrorist organization. This decision paved the way for the trial of public officials on charges of voluntary manslaughter.
Source: Zaman