Turkish suspect in Dink trial says ordered to kill
01 Oct 2007 13:06:20 GMT Source: Reuters
(Recasts with suspect's testimony, adds quote, details) By Mustafa Yukselbaba ISTANBUL, Oct 1 (Reuters) - The chief suspect in the murder of Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink told a court he was forced to carry out the killing, lawyers said on Monday, in a case seen as an important test for Ankara's EU membership bid. Hundreds of protesters, fearing a state coverup, demonstrated outside the second hearing of the case at the Istanbul courthouse with banners proclaiming: "We are all witnesses. We demand justice." The European Union opened membership talks with Turkey in 2005 and sees the Dink case as a test for a judicial system often accused of conservative bias. Police imposed heavy security outside the court house where 19 suspects were being tried over the killing of Dink, gunned down outside his Istanbul office in January by a 17-year-old who has confessed to the killing. The hearing was closed to the media but lawyers representing Dink quoted the 17-year-old suspect as saying in his testimony he was ordered to carry out the killing by a second suspect. He also said he took ecstasy and hashish on the day of the killing. The lawyer for the second suspect denied his client had given such an order. A committee of Dink's supporters, set up to monitor the trial, said in a statement: "This court's verdict will be decisive in showing whether real justice can still be implemented in Turkey." Dink's lawyers have complained that the murder has not been properly investigated and have expressed fears for the independence of the court, reflecting concerns about the possible involvement of Turkey's so-called "deep state". The "deep state" is a term used to describe hardline nationalists in the bureaucracy and security forces who are prepared to subvert the law for their own political ends. POLICE CONVERSATION PROBED At the weekend, Turkey's liberal Radikal newspaper published the transcript of a conversation between one of the suspects and a police officer two hours after the shooting which it said showed the officer was aware of a plan to kill Dink. The Interior Ministry has launched a probe into the telephone conversation. Dink had angered Turkish nationalists with his comments on the massacres of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World War One. More than 100,000 people turned out at his funeral to show solidarity and protest against violent nationalism. Media reports have said one of the suspects had repeatedly tipped off police about a plot to kill Dink and that these warnings had been conveyed to the Istanbul police headquarters. Several officials, including the head of police intelligence in Istanbul, have been sacked or reassigned to other jobs over their handling of the Dink case. Ankara denies Armenian claims, backed by many historians and a growing number of foreign parliaments, that the killings amounted to genocide. It says large numbers of both Muslim Turks and Christian Armenians died in ethnic fighting as the Ottoman Empire collapsed during World War One.
