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Imprisoned Dink Murder Suspect Says His Life Is In Danger

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  • Imprisoned Dink Murder Suspect Says His Life Is In Danger

    IMPRISONED DINK MURDER SUSPECT SAYS HIS LIFE IS IN DANGER

    epress.am
    01.11.2012

    During the 24th hearing of the Hrant Dink case, suspect Yasin Hayal
    claimed he was being threatened by prison guards and requested they
    be interrogated, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.

    "I have been used by the Turkish Republic, and now they want to
    eliminate me. My life is in danger and the state will be responsible
    if anything happens to me," suspect Hayal said in court.

    Hayal further alleged that many figures ranging from Erhan Tuncel to
    Ramazan Akyurek had taken advantage of him and exploited his poverty.

    "Tuncel persuaded me that our lives would be much better," he said.

    "I never knew Tuncel was a state agent. I respected him because he
    was the head of Alperen Ocakları [an extreme right-wing group]. I met
    him in 2002 and he introduced me to a lot of figures, including police
    officers. I do not recall any names, however. I was involved directly
    with Tuncel, and you ought to ask him about the names," Hayal said.

    Hayal also indicated they had a meeting in the Black Sea province of
    Trabzon with some people who had arrived from Istanbul, and it was
    here that Ogun Samast was selected as the triggerman.

    Meanwhile, the phone records provided to the court by Turkey's
    Telecommunications Directorate (TİB) included the numbers of certain
    individuals who have been in contact with case suspects, said one
    of the defendant's lawyers in the case of murdered Turkish-Armenian
    journalist Hrant Dink.

    "It is not true that there was no one connected to the suspects
    being tried in your court in the records sent by the TİB, containing
    some 6,235 interviews and 9,300 numbers. The existence of a direct
    connection between case suspects and certain phone numbers in the
    records has been established," said Fethiye Cetin, one of the Dink
    family's lawyers, during the trial yesterday.

    Five persons bearing a connection to the suspects and who were present
    at the crime scene have been identified through examining the records,
    Cetin said, adding that the connection between case suspects and
    another 14 persons who were missing from the crime scene but were
    called from there had also been determined.

    Tuncel's lawyer, Erdogan Soruklu, also agreed with the Dink lawyers
    and said some of the phone records were deleted.

    The prosecutor's office has accepted the lawyers' demand to examine
    the phone records of individuals allegedly connected to the case
    suspects in detail and subsequently ruled to request the relevant
    information from the TİB. Still, prosecutor Hikmet Usta denied the
    lawyers' claims and said they previously directed all the records to
    counterterrorism police and all records were analyzed.

    Usta further claimed Dink was not killed due to his Armenian identity;
    the prosecutor said his murder was part of a political murder tradition
    related to a terror organization within the state.

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