Dink gunman’s plead for release rejected

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

Ogün Samast was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison for murder. AA photo

The Supreme Court of Appeals yesterday rejected a plea by a defendant lawyer in the case of murdered Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink to release convicted triggerman Ogün Samast.

Samast’s lawyer, Levent Yıldırım, petitioned the Supreme Court of Appeals for his client’s release on the grounds that Samast’s arrest pending trial would exceed five years by the end of January, breaching reasonable time limits according to the Law of Criminal Procedure.

The court, however, indicated in its ruling that Samast had been arrested pending trial for a total of four years six months and five days and that his arrest was thus not in breach of reasonable time limits.
The appeals court based its decision on a local court’s ruling on July 25, 2011, according to which Samast’s arrest pending trial began on Jan. 20, 2007.

Ogün Samast was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison on the charges of “premeditated murder” and “carrying an unlicensed weapon” by a juvenile court in Istanbul for Dink’s murder.

Hrant Dink, the chief editor for weekly Agos, a paper published in both Turkish and Armenian, was shot dead in front of his office on Jan. 19, 2007.