Former İstanbul Police Chief Celalettin Cerrah is among the nine public officials who face an investigation on a charge of negligence in the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. (Photo: Cihan) report TodayZaman

Nine public officials, including former İstanbul Deputy Governor Ergun Güngör and former İstanbul Police Chief Celalettin Cerrah, are facing an investigation on a charge of negligence in the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who was assassinated in broad daylight outside the office of his Agos newspaper on Jan. 17, 2007.

The lawyers of Hrant Dink’s family had filed a complaint in 2011 with the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office against Güngör; Cerrah; the former chief of the İstanbul Police Department’s intelligence unit, Ahmet İlhan Güngör; and six other police officers on the grounds that those public officials were negligent in preventing Dink’s murder.

After the complaint, the chief public prosecutor’s office applied to the İstanbul Governor’s Office to ask for permission to investigate those listed public officials. However, the governor’s office did not give this permission to the prosecutor’s office. After the governor’s office’s decision, the prosecutors decided not to prosecute.

However, the Dink family filed an appeal with the Bakırköy 8th High Criminal Court to annul the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office’s decision not to prosecute.

On May 21 of this year, the Bakırköy court decided to cancel the prosecutor’s office’s decision not to prosecute.

After the decision of the high criminal court, the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office applied to the Justice Ministry, requesting that the Supreme Court of Appeals’ Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office appeal the Bakırköy 8th High Criminal Court’s verdict.

The Justice Ministry rejected this request, opening the way for an investigation into the public officials against whom the Dink family originally filed the criminal complaint.

This recent decision has paved the way for the judgment of the public officials on the charge of negligence in the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Dink.

Dink was shot and killed by an ultra-nationalist teenager seven years ago. The hit man, Ogün Samast, and 18 others were brought to trial. During the process, the lawyers for the Dink family and the co-plaintiffs in the case presented evidence indicating that Samast did not act alone. Another suspect, Yasin Hayal, was given life in prison for inciting Samast to murder. However, Erhan Tuncel, who worked as an informant for the Trabzon Police Department and was the man accused of initiating the effort to have Dink murdered, was found not guilty of the murder.