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Turkey: Accused mastermind's brother now also charged in Dink murder

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  • Turkey: Accused mastermind's brother now also charged in Dink murder

    Reporters Sans Frontieres press release, France
    October 27, 2008


    Turkey: Accused mastermind's brother now also charged in Dink murder


    Osman Hayal, the elder brother of the accused mastermind of
    Armenian-Turkish newspaper editor Hrant Dink's murder, has been
    charged with "complicity" and "membership of a terrorist
    organisation," becoming the 20th person to be formally indicted in
    connection with the fatal shooting of Dink in Istanbul on 19 January
    2007.

    Hayal is alleged to have accompanied the accused shooter, Ogun Samast,
    to Istanbul and to have assisted his escape afterwards. Hayal could
    get life imprisonment on the complicity charge and 15 years on the
    terrorism charge.

    When questioned last year, Hayal repeatedly denied being in Istanbul
    on the day of the murder. But he was arrested in August of this year
    after his mobile phone records reveal that he was after all in the
    city on that day.

    Questioned during the latest hearing on 13 October in the trial of
    Dink's accused murderers before an Istanbul court, Hayal reluctantly
    admitted he was in Istanbul on the day of the murder as his mobile
    phone had "emitted a signal from the district of Umranyie" but he said
    he lied simply out of fear of being arrested and insisted he never
    left his maternal uncle's depot on the Asian side of the city.

    The police nonetheless claim to have a witness, whose identity has not
    been revealed, who says Hayal was at the scene of the murder - on
    Halaskargazi Avenue in the district of Sisli - and that he was with
    Samast.

    The next hearing in the murder trial is scheduled for 26
    January. Nearly two years have gone by since the murder but the
    authorities still have not shed light on the roles of all those
    involved.
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