Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

ANKARA: Dink Murder Suspect Missing For 15 Days

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • ANKARA: Dink Murder Suspect Missing For 15 Days

    DINK MURDER SUSPECT MISSING FOR 15 DAYS

    Today's Zaman, Turkey
    Oct 2 2013

    2 October 2013 /TODAY'S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL

    One of the suspects in the Hrant Dink murder trial is nowhere to be
    found, although a court order was issued for his capture 15 days ago.

    Erhan Tuncel, one of the main suspects in the 2007 murder of Dink,
    a journalist, was initially acquitted by a lower court. The first
    court trial also revealed suspicious links between Tuncel and police
    and gendarmerie intelligence units. It appears that Tuncel worked as
    an informant for a local police department.

    When Dink was assassinated in January 2007, Yasin Hayal and Tuncel
    were among the 19 suspects accused of plotting the murder. At the
    end of the trial, the İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court acquitted
    Tuncel of the charges against him related to the assassination, but
    sentenced Hayal, who the court found had conspired to assassinate
    the journalist, to life.

    The İstanbul 2nd Juvenile High Criminal Court sentenced Ogun Samast,
    the hitman, to 23 years in prison. However, the court also ruled
    that Samast and Hayal had acted on their own, and that there was no
    criminal or terrorist organization behind them, a finding that was
    overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeals in a review of the lower
    court's ruling in May of this year.

    The İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court started to rehear the trial
    on Sept. 17, and this time the prosecution demanded Tuncel's arrest
    and the court complied, issuing an arrest warrant. However, Tuncel
    is nowhere to be found. Police have been looking for him for the past
    15 days.

    Erdogan Soruklu, a lawyer representing Tuncel, had earlier said that
    his client would surrender.

    Dink, the editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos,
    was shot dead on Jan. 19, 2007, by ultranationalist teenager Samast
    outside the newspaper's offices in İstanbul in broad daylight.

    Samast, tried in a juvenile court because he was a minor at the time
    of the crime, was sentenced to nearly 23 years in prison. On Jan. 17,
    2012, the İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court handed Hayal a life
    sentence for inciting Samast to commit murder.

    The prosecutor of the first trial said that the murder was planned
    and carried out by the Ergenekon terrorist organization, but the
    court denied the existence of organized criminal activity in the
    murder. The prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals later said
    there was a terrorist organization involved and that the state should
    investigate it.

    The 9th Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals in May ruled that there
    was an organization involved, but said that it was a simple crime ring,
    effectively denying that Ergenekon played any role in the murder.

Working...
X