Second suspect who threatened Hrant Dink Foundation detained

ISTANBUL

A second suspect who sent a death threat to the Hrant Dink Foundation, founded in the memory of the slain Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, just after the first suspect was arrested has been detained. 

Security units determined the location of the second suspect, identified only by the initials E.B., in Istanbul before detaining him. 

Police officials said E.B. had a heavy criminal record and lived in the United States for a while. He will be charged with sending “anonymous threats,” like the first suspect.  

“These are not individual attacks,” said Fethiye Çetin, one of the lawyers of the foundation, pointing to what she called systemic attacks. 

Last week, the Hrant Dink Foundation announced on their Twitter account that they had received an e-mail, threatening Rakel Dink, the wife of Hrant Dink and the lawyers of the foundation. 

Police detained the suspect, later revealed to be Hüseyin Ateş, in the Central Anatolian province of Konya and brought him to Istanbul. 

The 25-year-old suspect, who said he had been influenced by his Azerbaijani girlfriend’s views regarding the Nagorna-Karabakh dispute, was arrested on May 31. He is now facing seven years in prison. 
 
Hrant Dink was the editor-in-chief of Turkish-Armenian biweekly newspaper when he was gunned down in broad daylight outside of his office in Istanbul in 2007 by a 17-year-old ultranationalist.