Gülenists linked to Dink murder, claims Turkish interior minister amid detentions

ISTANBUL – Anadolu Agency

Four gendarmerie officers of various ranks and the owner of a publishing house were detained on July 27 in Istanbul and the northern province of Trabzon, as part of the probe into the 2007 killing of Armenian-origin Turkish journalist Hrant Dink.

Istanbul counter-terror police detained a gendarmerie lieutenant colonel, a gendarmerie sergeant, a gendarmerie specialized sergeant, and a press house owner in Istanbul, while Trabzon police detained a gendarmerie senior sergeant in a simultaneous operation. The suspects face charges linked to the Dink murder.

Dink, 52, was shot dead with two bullets to the head in broad daylight outside the central Istanbul office of Turkish-Armenian weekly newspaper Agos, where he was working as editor-in-chief, on Jan. 19, 2007.

He was killed by Ogün Samast, a 17-year-old jobless high-school dropout who confessed to the murder and was sentenced to almost 23 years in jail in 2011.

Relatives and followers of the case have claimed that government officials, police, military personnel and members of the National Intelligence Agency (MİT) played a role in Dink’s murder by neglecting their duty to protect the journalist.

Turkey’s top court in July 2014 ruled that the investigation into the killing had been flawed, paving the way for the trial of the police officials.