TURKEY: One more suspect detained related to the murder of Turkish-Armenian author Hrant Dink

Six suspect charged in relation to the killing of Hrant Dink, the writer who caused controversy in Turkey with his views on Armenian issues. Istanbul's chief prosecutor Aykut Cengiz Engin charged a sixth suspect -- Erhan Tuncel -- on Friday (January 26) with being a member of an armed criminal group, and inciting premeditated murder. All the suspects are from Trabzon and newspapers have linked them to a hardline nationalist party with Islamic connections. Turkey has seen a big rise in nationalism and analysts say the ruling AK Party, which has Islamist roots, is afraid to crack down on far-right elements before elections due this year. Teenager Ogun Samast has confessed to killing Dink, saying he did so because the journalist insulted Turkey's identity in his writings on Armenian issues -- a sensitive topic in Turkey. Istanbul's chief prosecutor Aykut Cengiz Engin has also charged Ogun Samast and Yasin Hayaval, an unemployed 17-year-old from the Black Sea coast, with premeditated murder and membership of an armed group. Hayal, a known nationalist militant, and three others have been charged with forming an armed organisation and incitement to murder. Hayal has admitted to inciting his friend Samast to kill Dink, police have said. The murder brought 100,000 mourners onto Istanbul's streets for Dink's funeral on Tuesday and reignited debate about hardline nationalism in a country seeking European Union membership. Samast, reported to have been close to an ultranationalist group in his home town Trabzon, has admitted to shooting Dink as he left his bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly newspaper Agos in Istanbul last Friday. The Interior Ministry said in a statement it had appointed two chief public inspectors to investigate whether the police and civilian authorities in Trabzon were at fault over the events surrounding Dink's murder in Istanbul last Friday. It gave no further details on the dismissals, but the state-run Anatolian news agency said the officials' removal was linked to recent incidents in Trabzon. They will now be assigned to work at central offices in Ankara. Five other suspects, including confessed murderer Ogun Samast, have been charged in the killing of Dink. Dink, who worked for reconciliation between Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks, had been prosecuted for his views on the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915. He was among intellectuals, including Nobel Literature Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, who have been prosecuted under laws the EU says restrict freedom of expression in Turkey. Turkey denies claims by Armenia and other countries that 1.5 million Armenians died in a systematic genocide at Turkish hands, saying large numbers of both Armenians and Turks perished during the break-up of the Ottoman Empire.

ITN Source | January 27, 2007

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