Ramazan Akyürek, a former police chief who also served as the head of the National Police Department’s intelligence unit, has testified as a suspect in an investigation into the 2007 killing of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, news reports said on Thursday.
Akyürek, who was the head of police intelligence at the time of the murder, was suspended from duty in March following accusations of negligence in preventing the killing.
Akyürek’s name frequently came up during the trial of the suspects accused of having plotted to kill Dink, who was shot and killed in 2007 by Ogün Samast, an ultranationalist teenager. Akyürek has been accused of having links to Erhan Tuncel, a suspect accused of soliciting Samast to murder Dink.
Akyürek testified to Prosecutor Yusuf Doğan for four hours, the private Doğan news agency said. He was released following his testimony.