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Agence France Presse -- English
February 1, 2007 Thursday 4:14 PM GMT
Eighth suspect charged over Turkish-Armenian journalist's murder
A Turkish court Thursday charged another man over the murder of
journalist Hrant Dink, one of Turkey's most prominent ethnic
Armenians, bringing to eight the number of suspects arrested in the
investigation, the Anatolia news agency reported.
The court jailed Tuncay Uzundal, reportedly a friend of one of the
other suspects, on charges of involvement in homicide and belonging
to an armed criminal organisation, judicial officials told Anatolia.
Another detainee questioned by prosecutors was released.
Among the eight suspects is the alleged assailant, 17-year-old Ogun
Samast, a jobless secondary school graduate who, officials say, has
confessed to gunning down Dink, 52, on January 19 outside the offices
of his bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos in downtown Istanbul.
Interior ministry inspectors, meanwhile, were looking into
allegations that the police had received a tip-off last year about a
plot to kill Dink being organised in Trabzon, from where all suspects
come, but did not follow up on the intelligence.
The tip-off reportedly came from one of the suspects currently in
jail who had been recruited as a police informer after a bomb blast
outside a McDonald's restaurant in Trabzon, for which Samast's
alleged instigator, also among the eight suspects, served 11 months
in jail.
Dink, a leading member of Turkey's tiny Armenian minority, was
opposed by nationalists for calling the World War I massacres of
Armenians genocide and urging an open debate into this controversial
period in Turkish history.
The probe has so far suggested that the suspects did not belong to
any known underground group but were under the sway of
ultra-nationalist ideas and wanted to take the law into their own
hands against what they saw as rising threats to Turkey's unity.
The governor and police chief of Trabzon, a nationalist stronghold,
were removed from office last week after they came under fire for
failing to act on a series of violent incidents in the city,
including the murder of an Italian Catholic priest by a 16-year-old
boy last year.
February 1, 2007 Thursday 4:14 PM GMT
Eighth suspect charged over Turkish-Armenian journalist's murder
A Turkish court Thursday charged another man over the murder of
journalist Hrant Dink, one of Turkey's most prominent ethnic
Armenians, bringing to eight the number of suspects arrested in the
investigation, the Anatolia news agency reported.
The court jailed Tuncay Uzundal, reportedly a friend of one of the
other suspects, on charges of involvement in homicide and belonging
to an armed criminal organisation, judicial officials told Anatolia.
Another detainee questioned by prosecutors was released.
Among the eight suspects is the alleged assailant, 17-year-old Ogun
Samast, a jobless secondary school graduate who, officials say, has
confessed to gunning down Dink, 52, on January 19 outside the offices
of his bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos in downtown Istanbul.
Interior ministry inspectors, meanwhile, were looking into
allegations that the police had received a tip-off last year about a
plot to kill Dink being organised in Trabzon, from where all suspects
come, but did not follow up on the intelligence.
The tip-off reportedly came from one of the suspects currently in
jail who had been recruited as a police informer after a bomb blast
outside a McDonald's restaurant in Trabzon, for which Samast's
alleged instigator, also among the eight suspects, served 11 months
in jail.
Dink, a leading member of Turkey's tiny Armenian minority, was
opposed by nationalists for calling the World War I massacres of
Armenians genocide and urging an open debate into this controversial
period in Turkish history.
The probe has so far suggested that the suspects did not belong to
any known underground group but were under the sway of
ultra-nationalist ideas and wanted to take the law into their own
hands against what they saw as rising threats to Turkey's unity.
The governor and police chief of Trabzon, a nationalist stronghold,
were removed from office last week after they came under fire for
failing to act on a series of violent incidents in the city,
including the murder of an Italian Catholic priest by a 16-year-old
boy last year.