The body of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink is seen on the pavement in front of his newspaper office in İstanbul.(Photo: Reuters)
An indictment that had already been revised by public prosecutor Gökalp Kökçü, who is overseeing an ongoing investigation into state officials who face charges of misconduct and negligence in the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in 2007, was again returned to him by the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office for allegedly including the names of some pro-government police officers as suspects and demanding a prison sentence of up to 25 years for police chief Engin Dinç, who is also 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.
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 also requested that the investigation being conducted into the state officials on the charges of misconduct and negligence be merged with a trial being heard at the İstanbul 5th High Criminal Court against the perpetrators of Dink’s assassination. In this trial Ogün Samast, Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel stand as the accused.
On Monday, the altered indictment was returned to Kökçü by the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, 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 they received intelligence on a probable assassination of Dink in Trabzon, which was sent to the İstanbul police in a letter numbered 027248 on Feb. 17, 2006. “I also phoned the chief of the intelligence unit of the İstanbul Police Department about the intelligence,” Dinç said in his testimony.
However, Cerrah and Güler stated in their testimonies before the court during the trial in December 2014 that they had not received any intelligence about Dink’s assassination before the murder took place in 2007.
Dink was shot and killed by Samast, an ultranationalist teenager, in 2007. Samast and 18 others were brought to trial. Since then, the lawyers for the Dink family and the co-plaintiffs in the case have presented evidence indicating that Samast did not act alone. Another suspect, Hayal, was sentenced to life in prison for inciting Samast to commit murder.
The retrial started in September 2014 when the İstanbul 5th High Criminal Court complied with a ruling from the Supreme Court of Appeals in May 2013, overturning 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.