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Turkey Suspect Says Police Failed To Stop Journalist Murder

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  • Turkey Suspect Says Police Failed To Stop Journalist Murder

    TURKEY SUSPECT SAYS POLICE FAILED TO STOP JOURNALIST MURDER

    Yahoo News, Australia
    Dec 4 2013

    December 4, 2013, 6:32 am

    Istanbul (AFP) - A former Turkish police informant accused of
    instigating the 2007 murder of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink
    claimed in court Tuesday that he had warned police of the plot but
    they failed to act.

    Erhan Tuncel is being retried in an Istanbul court over the
    high-profile killing in Turkey's largest city after initially being
    acquitted of all charges in 2012.

    Tuncel, 32, testified on Tuesday that he had informed the former head
    of police intelligence, Ramazan Akyurek, of the plan to kill Dink but
    that his warnings went unheeded, according to Turkish press reports.

    "I have no connection to the murder. I warned them. The murder could
    have been prevented," he said.

    The case was adjourned until January 7.

    Dink, 52, was gunned down in broad daylight by a teenage
    ultranationalist outside the offices of his bilingual weekly newspaper
    Agos in January 2007 in a killing that shocked the country.

    Dink, then Turkey's most prominent ethnic Armenian journalist and
    a leading member of the tiny community, had incurred the wrath of
    Turkish nationalists for calling the World War I massacre of Armenians
    a genocide.

    A crowd of demonstrators gathered outside the courthouse for Tuesday's
    hearing, chanting "the murderer state will be held accountable".

    Tuncel's allegations appear to back up widespread accusations of a
    state conspiracy after media reports that security forces had known
    of the murder plot but failed to act.

    Dink's lawyers and human rights activists believe that those behind
    the murder were protected by the state because Dink had been receiving
    threats long before he was killed.

    Ethnic Kurdish actor Sermiyan Midyat read out a statement on behalf of
    the demonstrators Tuesday calling on the government to stop "remaining
    silent and protecting the civil servants involved in the murder".

    Despite the accusations against him, Akyurek received a promotion in
    2011, further angering Dink's supporters.

    An Istanbul court in 2011 sentenced Dink's self-confessed killer
    Ogun Samast, who was tried separately as he was juvenile at the time,
    to 23 years in jail.

    A year later, the court sentenced the alleged mastermind of the murder,
    Yasin Hayal, to life imprisonment but acquitted 18 other defendants
    including Tuncel, ruling that there was no conspiracy.

    However an appeals court in May this year ordered a retrial after
    ruling that there was a criminal conspiracy to murder Dink.

    In an interview with Turkey's Star newspaper last month, Tuncel --
    who was arrested in October after being on the run -- accused the
    gendarmerie of playing a "big role" in the murder of Dink.

    An Istanbul court decided last week not to merge the trial of
    gendarmerie commander Ali Oz who is charged with neglect of duty over
    the Dink killing, with the main trial.

    http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/20141115/turkey-suspect-says-police-failed-to-stop-journalist-murder/
    http://www.france24.com/en/20131203-turkey-suspect-says-police-failed-stop-journalist-murder


    From: Baghdasarian
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