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ISTANBUL: Hrant's Friends Call On State To Punish Perpetrators

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  • ISTANBUL: Hrant's Friends Call On State To Punish Perpetrators

    HRANT'S FRIENDS CALL ON STATE TO PUNISH PERPETRATORS

    Today's Zaman
    http://www.todayszaman.com/news-270153-hrants-friends-call-on-state-to-punish-perpetrators.html
    Jan 31 2012
    Turkey

    In their ongoing search for justice, a group of people who identify
    themselves as "Hrant's Friends" released a press statement on Tuesday
    calling on the government to punish the perpetrators in the 2007 murder
    of journalist Hrant Drink, a Turkish citizen of Armenian descent.

    Civil society was outraged when the Ä°stanbul 14th High Criminal Court
    issued its ruling in the 25th hearing of the Dink case this month,
    ending a five-year trial. The main suspects, Yasin Hayal and Erhan
    Tuncel, as well as all other suspects were cleared of charges of
    membership in a terrorist organization. Tuncel was given 10 years,
    six months for an unrelated McDonald's bombing in 2004.

    Tuncel was previously a police informant, but was accused of being
    an instigator of the Dink murder. He said the murder was the work
    of Ergenekon, a clandestine organization whose alleged members are
    currently standing trial in court cases on charges of plotting to
    overthrow the government.

    The late editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, Dink
    was shot dead on Jan. 19, 2007 by an ultranationalist teenager, Ogun
    Samast, outside the offices of his newspaper in Ä°stanbul in broad
    daylight. Evidence discovered since then has led to claims that the
    murder was linked to the "deep state," a term used in reference to
    a shady group of military and civilian bureaucrats believed to have
    links to criminal elements.

    Reading the press statement on behalf of Hrant's Friends, journalist
    Umit Kıvanc stated:

    "The government says: We did everything the judiciary demanded of us.

    And we say: It's shameful to say that because, first of all, there
    have been so many things that you could have done but did not. Second,
    the court was scandalous not because of its verdict but because of the
    way it was set up from the beginning. You did not do the things that
    were required of you. All of the officials who destroyed evidence,
    forged documents, altered documents, made fun of the lawyers who
    have been trying hard to make their voices heard during the trial,
    they are all your employees. Had you given real support to justice,
    none of these disgraceful events would have occurred. You managed to
    achieve something unbelievable, being an accomplice, in the act that
    appears to have targeted your government. Congratulations."

    The statement then provided examples of what was not done in the
    trial. The group also gave the names of top officials who allegedly
    engaged in gross negligence of duty in the process that led to
    Dink's murder.

    "No doubt, we should start with MÄ°T [the National Intelligence
    Organization]. No information came out from the state's most important
    intelligence agency regarding the murder of Hrant Dink. When the court
    demanded information from them, they said, 'We have no information.' A
    serious government would ask how come they don't have any information
    in that regard," the statement said.

    The statement also said it became clear that Trabzon police had tapped
    the phone lines of some suspects and even physically followed them,
    but when the court asked for those records, the Trabzon police said
    they did not tap any phone lines in relation to the murder:

    "However, the police chief said Trabzon did do it. When their lies
    came out, Trabzon police said they erased those records. Some of the
    records that could be acquired they forged."

    The statement also mentioned the Ä°stanbul Police Department's deletion
    of video footage around the murder site:

    "The Ä°stanbul Police Department's actions in relation to the
    assassination of Hrant Dink are scandalous. Concealing the notification
    of the planned murder and then forging documents would be enough. All
    of that remained unpunished. Fine. Ä°stanbul police destroyed video
    footage of the crime scene on the day of the murder. ...

    Did the interior minister and the prime minister ask anyone about
    what happened and why that footage was deleted?"

    The statement goes on to provide more examples, resistance from the
    Telecommunications Directorate (TÄ°B) as it for years failed to provide
    the court the records of phone conversations of suspects and the
    deletion of Tuncel's MSN conversation records by the Ä°stanbul police.

    Hrant's Friends point out "untouchable" officials allegedly responsible
    for Dink's murder:

    Muammer Guler, who was the governor of Ä°stanbul at the time and
    currently a lawmaker, is listed as being responsible because Dink was
    threatened by two MİT officials, Ozel Yılmaz and Handan Selcuk,
    at the office of Deputy Governor Ergun Gungör. Other individuals
    listed as being responsible for Dink's assassination include Osmaniye
    Governor Celalettin Cerrah, who was the Ä°stanbul chief of police at
    the time of the murder; Ahmet Ä°lhan Guler, then head of intelligence
    at the Ä°stanbul Police Department; ReÅ~_at Altay, then Trabzon police
    chief; Engin Dinc, then head of intelligence at the Trabzon Police
    Department and the man who told the Ä°stanbul Police Department that
    Dink was going to be killed; police officers Faruk Sarı, Ozkan Mumcu,
    Muhittin Zenit and Mehmet Ayhan, who were in direct contact with Tuncel
    at the Trabzon Police Department; Ä°stanbul police officers Ä°brahim
    Pala, Ä°brahim Å~^evki Eldivan, Volkan Altınbulak, Bahadır Tekin and
    Ozcan Ozkan, who forged documents; Ali Oz, the then commander of the
    Trabzon Gendarmerie Command, who covered up information regarding
    plans to murder Dink; and Ramazan Akyurek, who was the chief of
    police in Trabzon when Tuncel was made an informant and who held
    the same position when the information regarding the planned Dink
    assassination reached his office.

    "They get angry with us when we say the state is a murderer. However,
    they have been making fun of us for five years as we have not given
    into our anger. These words are not statements made out of anger. They
    are an expression of the situation. Come and do something different
    and we will never use that word again. Can you do that?" the statement
    said in conclusion.

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