Thursday, January 19 2017 12:15

ArmInfo.10 years have passed since the assassination of Hrant Dink, the editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos.  

Hrant Dink was a prominent member of the Armenian minority in Turkey.  Dink was best known for advocating Turkish-Armenian reconciliation  and human and minority rights in Turkey; he was often critical of  Turkey's denial of the Armenian Genocide and received numerous death  threats from Turkish nationalists.

Dink was assassinated in Istanbul on 19 January 2007 by Ogun Samast,  a 17-year-old Turkish nationalist, but the customers of the crime  were not detected. The Dink murder trial opened in Istanbul on 2 July  2007. Eighteen people were charged at Istanbul Heavy Penal Court No  14 in connection with the journalist's assassination. Since the main  suspect, Ogun Samast was younger than 18, the hearing was not public.  Reportedly, the defendants Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel repeated  their testimonies given to the security forces and prosecutor. The  court decided to release the defendants Osman Altay, Irfan Ozkan,  Salih Hacisalihoglu and Veysel Toprak to be tried without remand and  adjourned the hearing to 1 October. On 25 July 2011, Samast was  convicted of premeditated murder and illegal possession of a firearm  by Istanbul's Heavy Juvenile Criminal Court. He was sentenced to 22  years and 10 months in prison, and could be eligible for parole in  2021, after serving two thirds of his sentence. Another suspect,  Yasin Hayal, was convicted of ordering the murder and was sentenced  to life imprisonment. In July 2014, the Turkish Supreme Court ruled  that the investigation into the killing had been flawed, thus paving  the way for trials of police officials and other public authorities.  In the pursuit of this case hearings were held, and in January 2017  Ali Fuat Y?lmazer, the former head of Turkey's police intelligence  branch, gave testimony that the killing was "deliberately not  prevented" and security authorities in Istanbul and Trabzon were  responsible.