Lawyer claims MİT gave order to kill Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Cyrillic

Fethiye Çetin, one of the lawyers of the family of murdered Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, claimed in her newly published book that the order to kill Dink was given by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) via an encrypted message written in Cyrillic, the Milliyet daily reported on Monday.

Çetin based her claims on explanations and documents from Ramazan Dündar, a cryptology expert at MİT.

The late editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, Dink was shot dead in broad daylight on Jan. 19, 2007, by an ultranationalist teenager outside the offices of his newspaper in İstanbul. The gunman, Ogün Samast, and 18 others were brought to trial. The investigation into his murder was stalled but the suspected perpetrator and his accomplices were put on trial. However, the final ruling issued by the İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court last year failed to appease those expecting justice to be served.

In her book, titled “Utanç Duyuyorum-Hrant Dink Cinayeti’nin Yargısı” (I am ashamed — Trial of Hrant Dink’s Murder), Çetin says she received a phone call on March 16, 2010, from a man who called himself “Ramazan” and said he works as a cryptology expert at MİT’s East Anatolia regional office. He said he had an important document regarding Dink’s murder and would give the document to Çetin if she went to the French Consulate in Aleppo to collect it.

Çetin said her friend in Gaziantep agreed to go to Aleppo on her behalf to collect the document. In the meantime, she said she continued to communicate with Ramazan over Skype and the man showed her some encrypted documents about Dink’s murder.

“I did not understand anything. I asked the man what those documents had to do with Dink’s murder,” Çetin said.

In response, Ramazan said: “The documents that I have are encrypted. In correspondence, no state office says, ‘Go and kill Dink’.”

Çetin said the encrypted messages were deciphered with the help of Dündar to reveal the execution order given by MİT for Dink.

In her book, Çetin also included MİT’s response to her allegation. She said she went to the prosecutor’s office and asked several questions that were directed at MİT. In response, MİT denied the allegations of giving an execution order for Dink, saying that MİT does not have an employee named Ramazan Dündar and that the document provided by Dündar does not belong to MİT.