Hakan Bakırcıoğlu, a lawyer representing the family of slain Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, has claimed that the Trabzon Gendarmerie Command had known about the assassination plot against Dink six months before the murder took place.

The lawyer said the murder took place on Jan. 19, 2007, and the gendarmerie command was informed in July 2006 that the murder was going to take place. Dink, the editor-in-chief of the Agos newspaper, was assassinated in broad daylight outside his office.

Bakırcıoğlu also claimed that high-ranking gendarmerie commanders, such as Ali Öz and Metin Yıldız, had known that Yasin Hayal, one of the prime suspects in the ongoing Dink murder investigation, was planning to kill Dink.

Dink was shot and killed by an ultra-nationalist teenager. The hitman, Ogün Samast, and 18 others were brought to trial. Since then, the lawyers of the Dink family and the co-plaintiffs in the case have presented evidence indicating that Samast did not act alone.

In his interview with the Agos newspaper, the family’s lawyer also said that a report prepared at 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 20, 2007, at the Trabzon Gendarmerie Command included the exact features of the gun used by Samast. “However, Samast was captured at 11 p.m. [on Jan. 20, 2007] at the Samsun bus station and the murder weapon was seized at that time. This means that officials at the Trabzon Gendarmerie Command had known about the features of the gun even though the gun had not yet been seized,” he said.

The lawyer said the officials from the Trabzon Gendarmerie Command also knew that the suspects were determined to commit the murder. He said they arrived in İstanbul, inspected the road between Dink’s home and his office — the Agos newspaper building — and even drew sketches as to how they could go through with the assassination. He also said they were trying to obtain a gun to commit the murder.

Bakırcıoğlu asked about police chiefs allegedly linked with the Hizmet movement — which is inspired by the teachings of Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. The chiefs testified to prosecutors as part of the Dink murder probe. In response to a question on whether the Dink investigation will be turned into a case used to try the Hizmet-affiliated police officers, Bakırcıoğlu said the prosecutors must assess the powers and duties of all the related public officials in the case, as well as their possible role in the murder, in order to arrive at the truth.

 

Lawyer: MİT, ex-intel chief did not protect Dink

 

Emphasizing that Dink was living in İstanbul, Bakırcıoğlu said: “His home and the Agos newspaper were both in İstanbul. He was shot during the day on one of the most crowded streets of İstanbul. … According to the Regulations on Protection Services, both the National Intelligence Organization [MİT] and former İstanbul Police Department Intelligence Bureau Chief Ahmet İlhan Güler were directly responsible for taking measures to protect Dink, and it is pretty clear that these responsibilities were not met.”

He also said the Dink murder was an organized assassination and that there is collective responsibility that needs to be taken. “A possible indictment to be prepared should include this [concept of] collective responsibility. An indictment prepared against one particular group or only certain officials will be deficient and misleading,” Bakırcıoğlu said.

There has been a recent attempt by some pro-government circles to put the responsibility for the Dink murder on police officers that they have labeled as being linked to the Hizmet movement. The movement has been subjected to a large-scale smear campaign by the government under claims of it being a “parallel state.” The campaign has been directed at the movement since Dec. 17, 2013, when a major corruption scandal implicating high-ranking state officials, including former Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and four former ministers, went public. The “parallel state” or “parallel structure” is a term used by Erdoğan to refer to the Hizmet movement, which he says was behind the corruption scandal.

Former Police Chief Ali Fuat Yılmazer and the former head of the National Police Department’s intelligence unit, Ramazan Akyürek, were among the police chiefs who testified to prosecutors as part of the Dink murder probe.