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CRIME OF NEGLIGENCE
Today's Zaman
Feb 21 2012
Turkey
A report prepared by the State Audit Institution (DDK) regarding the
murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink has revealed that
mistakes were made in the investigation of public officials who were
suspected to have acted negligently in preventing the murder. Dink,
the late editor-in-chief of Agos, was shot dead by an ultranationalist
teenager outside the office of his Ä°stanbul-based newspaper in broad
daylight on Jan. 19, 2007.
The investigation into his murder stalled when the suspected
perpetrator and his accomplices were put on trial whereas those who
masterminded the plot to kill him have yet to be exposed and punished.
In the face of growing calls from the public, Gul ordered the DDK to
investigate the Dink murder in 2011.
Noting that the DDK report presents significant clues and makes crucial
assessments on clarifying the murder, Radikal's Oral CalıÅ~_lar
says the summary of the DDK report made mention of the method adopted
during the investigation of public officials. This method supposedly
led to the failure of not investigating all allegations regarding
public officials as a whole. The report noted that as a result of
this failure, the seriousness of the actions by public officials in
the run up to the murder has not been understood.
However, CalıÅ~_lar notes that it was not only public officials
who had been negligent. The prosecutors, too, were negligent by not
interrogating the Trabzon Gendarmerie Command, the head of the Trabzon
Police Department and the head of the Ä°stanbul Police Department. They
were all allegedly informed about the murder beforehand, yet they
did not take the necessary measures, such as protecting Dink. There
was also negligence on the part of the state bureaucrats because
they allegedly said there was no relation between the murder and
a terrorist organization -- namely Ergenekon. Finally, the people's
negligence constituted remaining silent when Dink was verbally attacked
for expressing his opinion when he was still alive. In other words,
CalıÅ~_lar says the perpetrator of the murder is obviously the
Ergenekon organization; but negligence, specifically deliberate
negligence, is a crime as well and, hence, we are all implicated in
this crime, he says.
Describing the Dink case as "a course that the students at police
academies should take to learn how not to deal with a murder case,"
Yeni Å~^afak's Abdulkadir Selvi says the worst article is an article
in which the writer repeats the things he wrote in the previous one.
Selvi, however, says he feels like he has no choice because it
always boils down to the same issue in the Dink case: Everyone knows
everything about why and who conducted this murder. Yet, we are
disappointed to see that the judiciary fails to see or accept these
facts that everyone else knows about, he says. However, the DDK report
gave Selvi the hope that the law will finally function and that --
though it may take a long time -- justice can actually be served in
the Dink case.
From: A. Papazian
Today's Zaman
Feb 21 2012
Turkey
A report prepared by the State Audit Institution (DDK) regarding the
murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink has revealed that
mistakes were made in the investigation of public officials who were
suspected to have acted negligently in preventing the murder. Dink,
the late editor-in-chief of Agos, was shot dead by an ultranationalist
teenager outside the office of his Ä°stanbul-based newspaper in broad
daylight on Jan. 19, 2007.
The investigation into his murder stalled when the suspected
perpetrator and his accomplices were put on trial whereas those who
masterminded the plot to kill him have yet to be exposed and punished.
In the face of growing calls from the public, Gul ordered the DDK to
investigate the Dink murder in 2011.
Noting that the DDK report presents significant clues and makes crucial
assessments on clarifying the murder, Radikal's Oral CalıÅ~_lar
says the summary of the DDK report made mention of the method adopted
during the investigation of public officials. This method supposedly
led to the failure of not investigating all allegations regarding
public officials as a whole. The report noted that as a result of
this failure, the seriousness of the actions by public officials in
the run up to the murder has not been understood.
However, CalıÅ~_lar notes that it was not only public officials
who had been negligent. The prosecutors, too, were negligent by not
interrogating the Trabzon Gendarmerie Command, the head of the Trabzon
Police Department and the head of the Ä°stanbul Police Department. They
were all allegedly informed about the murder beforehand, yet they
did not take the necessary measures, such as protecting Dink. There
was also negligence on the part of the state bureaucrats because
they allegedly said there was no relation between the murder and
a terrorist organization -- namely Ergenekon. Finally, the people's
negligence constituted remaining silent when Dink was verbally attacked
for expressing his opinion when he was still alive. In other words,
CalıÅ~_lar says the perpetrator of the murder is obviously the
Ergenekon organization; but negligence, specifically deliberate
negligence, is a crime as well and, hence, we are all implicated in
this crime, he says.
Describing the Dink case as "a course that the students at police
academies should take to learn how not to deal with a murder case,"
Yeni Å~^afak's Abdulkadir Selvi says the worst article is an article
in which the writer repeats the things he wrote in the previous one.
Selvi, however, says he feels like he has no choice because it
always boils down to the same issue in the Dink case: Everyone knows
everything about why and who conducted this murder. Yet, we are
disappointed to see that the judiciary fails to see or accept these
facts that everyone else knows about, he says. However, the DDK report
gave Selvi the hope that the law will finally function and that --
though it may take a long time -- justice can actually be served in
the Dink case.
From: A. Papazian