BDP seeks inquiry into Dink’s murder

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

DHA photo

The Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) has submitted a proposal to open a parliamentary inquiry into the murder of Hrant Dink, a Turkish journalist of Armenian origin, only days after the sixth anniversary of his assassination.

The proposal, submitted to the Parliamentary Speaker’s Office on Jan. 21 by a group of BDP deputies led by deputy parliamentary group chair İdris Baluken, said public servants who neglected their duties deliberately or unintentionally were not investigated at all.

The ideological discrimination observed along the judicial process following the assassination has opened a deep wound in society’s conscience, BDP deputies said. They asked for a parliamentary inquiry to be opened to fulfill justice, to overcome the problems in the judicial approach and for the investigation of the murder along with its deep connections. Dink was murdered on Jan. 19, 2007, in broad daylight in front of the offices of Agos, the paper where he worked, by Ogün Samast, a 17-year-old Turkish nationalist. After a two-year trial, Samast was convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to 22 years and 10 months of prison.

‘Not organized crime’

The court also ruled that Dink’s murder was not an organized crime despite serious claims that some civil servants linked to the “deep state” were “indirectly” involved, to the dismay of Dink’s family.

However, this court decision was recently challenged in an appeal. The prosecutor’s office of the Supreme Court of Appeals asked the top court to overturn the rulings in Dink’s murder case Jan. 10, arguing that there were enough elements to conclude that the assassination had been organized.