Mockery, disturbing confessions

[Sari Galin]

A defendant has said he informed gendarmerie officers at least four times that Yasin Hayal, one of the key suspects in the plot leading to the 2007 assassination of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, had plans to have Dink killed.

The sixth hearing in the case, at the İstanbul Criminal Court yesterday, saw for the first time the testimony of Coşkun Iğcı, Hayal's uncle, who says he tried to dissuade Hayal from his plans to have Dink murdered but was unable to do so and thus informed gendarmerie officers, who told him they were already monitoring Hayal. Dink was shot dead outside the offices of the Agos newspaper in İstanbul in January 2007. Police arrested the suspected gunman, Ogün Samast, and his alleged associate, Hayal.

Seventeen-year-old Samast was charged with murdering Dink and membership in a criminal group. The first five hearings were closed to the media because suspect Samast was a minor at the time. Hayal, aged 26, was also detained for providing Samast with money and a gun, and threatening Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, who, like Armenian-Turkish newspaper Agos' editor-in-chief Dink, stood trial under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). "It was my duty as a citizen," said Iğcı, referring to his informing the officers.

Iğcı said he tried to dissuade Hayal from the murder plot for about one-and-a-half months until October 2006, but never saw him again after that. When asked how many times he spoke with gendarmerie officers about the issue, Iğcı said he has known the gendarmerie officers since 2004 and saw them four or five times.

When he heard the news of Dink's assassination, Iğcı said he guessed it was Hayal's plot. He said he had known Hayal since childhood and that it was not hard to believe that he could commit such a murder. Iğcı also said he did not know Dink but spoke to the officers to protect Hayal. He added that he was relieved when he heard Samast was the alleged perpetrator.

Murder trial or comedy scene

Erhan Tuncel, another suspect linked to the Dink murder, also appeared in court. He was previously charged with being a member of an armed criminal group formed to commit crime and inciting premeditated murder.

The suspects seemed relaxed during the trial, shocking the public with their not-so-serious remarks. At one point Hayal's lawyer, Fuat Turgut, asked Tuncel if he knew a woman he met with often in Eski?ehir was an Israeli and Tuncel, stunning the courtroom audience, responded with a joke: "I've just found out that she was the daughter of the Israeli president."

When Turgut wanted to ask Samast a question, Samast said, "Do not make me talk to that crazy man." Turgut asked him if he called Hayal on the day of the murder and asked if Samast would kill everybody at Agos and if Hayal replied by saying, "Don't do it, there are innocent people." Samast replied by saying that he had neither asked such a question nor had Hayal given such a reply.

Samast surprised spectators at another point during the hearing. When asked if a person who called him in front of the Agos newspaper was Turkish-Armenian writer Etyen Mahçupyan, he answered: "No, it wasn't him. Jennifer Lopez called me."

When Hayal took the stand he first greeted the members of the press and the "leader of the Turkish nation Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu," who is in reality leader of the ultranationalist Grand Unity Party (BBP): "Dear Muslims and dear Alperens [bBP ultranationalist youth organization], be relaxed. We will have this situation continue until the BBP comes to power."

At the hearing, Hakkı Bahadır Cihan, the founder of the Trabzon Alperen Association, who was detained and released, also testified. He said he had no ties to Dink's murder and that Tuncel was not accepted into his association because he had contact with civilian police officers. As Cihan said these words, Tuncel asserted that how Cihan headed the association with "his little brain" was questionable.

In addition to defendants Samast, Tuncel, Hayal, Zeynel Abidin Yavuz, Ersin Yolcu, Ahmet İskender, Mustafa Öztürk and Tuncay Uzundal, who are all under arrest, other suspects who had been released pending trial -- Iğcı, Erbil Susaman, Veysel Toprak and Salih Hacı Salihoğlu -- were present at the hearing. Nineteen suspects, eight of whom are in prison, are being tried in the case.

Hrant Dink's wife, Rakel Dink, her daughter, Delal Dink, Hrant Dink's brother, Orhan Dink, and his attorneys were all in attendance at yesterday's hearing. Heavy security measures were in place around the court.

European Parliament member Cem Özdemir, Justice and Development Party (AK Party) deputy, Ayşenur Bahçekapılı, Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Şahin Mengü, writer Adalet Ağaoğlu, journalist-writer Cengiz Çandar, journalist Ece Temelkuran, writer Yavuz Baydar, director Sırrı Süreyya Önder and several foreign media representatives were also at the hearing.

Özdemir said before the hearing that those working against racism and discrimination were standing by each other's sides, adding, "The vision of a democratic, secular, bright and European Turkey, backed by Hrant, has not yet materialized." The trial began in July 2007. Prosecutors have demanded a prison term of 18 to 24 years for Dink's suspected assassin and life sentences for two key suspects, Hayal and Tuncel, for inciting to murder.

'It's been a year - what has happened?'

Dink's friends sought the attention of the public before the sixth hearing of the murder case started, with the call "To the court for Hrant, for justice! It has been one year. What happened?"

They gathered at Beşiktaş Square yesterday morning and brought to mind that it had been 535 days since Dink was killed and 534 days since his alleged killer was caught, but that nothing had really been accomplished in the last five hearings.

They criticized the trial process and said, "We will be at the court again for Hrant, for justice."

08 July 2008, Tuesday

<http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=146943>

[Sari Galin]

лысый это выблядок который убил Гранта

выблядок с поддельником которого замели в ходе следствия

Хаи митингуют в Полисе

[Sari Galin]

Yavuz Baydar

Blocked and blurred, Dink trial feeds sense of despair

Attending proceedings of the Hrant Dink murder trial has always been a painful experience. For those of us journalists whose careers have been full of experiences of the never-ending legal and illegal processes against Turkey's intellectuals -- free speech "violations" or assassinations -- it is like a watching the same movie and knowing how it will end. It adds to the conclusion that justice will be left either unaccomplished or far away.

I had met one of Dink's lawyers days before the last session on Monday. She did not want to dwell upon the details of the investigation, the news reports and the past five trials.

"It is very simple," she told me, when I asked what her conclusion so far would be. "We [Dink's lawyers] all know. It is our conviction that the Turkish state, with all its security institutions, the police, the gendarmerie, the secret service and whatnot, had known that he would be killed. That is for certain."

When I attended the seventh trial of the murder of my beloved friend and colleague, the question in my mind was about how widespread the active "cooperation" in the crime was, rather than who knew how much.

The trial is a farce in many ways. People are stuffed in a narrow hall with no windows where it is hard to breathe and, although gendarmerie soldiers surround them and keep them under strict observation, the accused are feeling free to chat and joke with each other, at times even swearing at lawyers and witnesses. The chief judge has a hard time keeping them in order.

The way the trial is proceeding also weakens hopes that it will uncover the whole truth behind the heinous slaying. The data provided so far points to a complex picture. A key witness appearing on Monday confirmed this. Coşkun İğci, a local security informer near Trabzon and a relative of one of the accused, Yasin Hayal, told the court -- in apparent honesty -- that many people, including himself, knew that Hayal had been preparing to kill Dink for a long time. He also confirmed that he was unable to stop him from acquiring a gun and in anxiety got in touch with two gendarmerie security officials more than once. They told him that he should not worry and that "everything was under control."

Monday's trial also highlighted the possible involvement of the ultra-nationalist Grand Unity Party (BBP) and its youth branch, Alperen. The lawyers' cross examination made it clear that many local BBP affiliates had been involved in the plot to kill Dink.

What made the session so interesting was the escalating strife between the accused. While the alleged killer (who confessed to the crime), Ogün Samast, remained nervous throughout the session, Yasin Hayal (who was accused of pushing Samast into the murder) and his lawyer fiercely attacked the third accused, Erhan Tuncel, a police informer, in what appears to be an attempt to "shuffle the responsibility onto the police intelligence." Meanwhile, some witnesses seemed to try to "clean the BBP out of the murder plot."

I left the trial in a hopeless mood. It has been over a year since the legal process was launched and, apart from the mess the accused and their lawyers create, the path to truth has become more and more complicated because of the way the other "sub-trials" are handled. During the process, officials in Trabzon, Ankara and İstanbul were accused of negligence and abuse of duty, but despite demands by Dink's lawyers and the press, authorities refused to lift the impunity of the police and army members and the judiciary declined the requests to "unify" the cases launched against some people in order to get "the full picture." Officials such as Celalettin Cerrah -- the İstanbul Police Chief -- cannot be investigated.

Observers of the Dink murder case, including myself, regard the "scattered cases" as a deliberate attempt to block efforts to shed light on the whole truth and reach justice.

Now, in the middle of all the desperation and rage Dink's family gives expression to, there are also those who have become hopeful that the Ergenekon case, the indictment for which will be made public by Friday, will give some concrete clues about the course of the murder trial, by way of "deep state" involvement.

One point is certain: Turkey will not see the light of day unless we know exactly who, and with the help of whom, actually planned and murdered our courageous colleague.

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[Sari Galin]

Dink portrait on display in press history museum

An oil portrait of slain Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was put on display yesterday in the İstanbul Press Museum’s section of journalists who have left their mark on the history of the Turkish press.

Dink’s widow, Rakel, his niece Dilara and his Aunt Zabel attended a ceremony yesterday to mark the induction of his portrait into the museum.

Orhan Erinç, head of the Turkey Journalists’ Association (TGC), said Dink was the last of their friends to have been separated from them with a gun. He said Dink’s portrait showed the difficulty and danger of journalism, adding that its place among portraits of other murdered journalists was heartbreaking.

Erinç recalled that the Dink murder trial was still ongoing. “But we have learned from what journalists have written that his assassination plot was known to many. We learned that we lost Hrant Dink, not only as a journalist, but also as a citizen, to major negligence. We are sure that the perpetrators and powers behind this will be sentenced at the end of the process. But this is not going to be a satisfactory conclusion for us because a large number of journalist friends of ours are trying to carry on their professions under threat. Some have to travel around under police protection. This shows that journalism is becoming an even more difficult profession in Turkey. I would like to state on this occasion one more time how strange we find it that authorities are not taking any precautions and are not making any sincere efforts to enforce the law.”

At the end of his speech Erinç thanked the Dink family for their contributions in making the portrait a part of the museum’s permanent exhibition.

Rakel Dink also delivered a speech. “The children of this country unfortunately became museum exhibition pieces at a very young age,” she said.

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