Slain Turkish-Armenian journalist remembered

ISTANBUL

Hundreds of people gathered in Istanbul on Jan. 19 to mark the death anniversary of Hrant Dink, a prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist who was gunned down in broad daylight in front of his office 16 years ago.

The crowd walked to the site, the former office building of weekly Agos whose editor-in-chief was once Dink, carrying black-and-white placards written in Armenian on one side and Turkish on the other.

Participants voiced their demands for justice during the commemoration as they do every year.

After the flower-leaving ceremony, doves were projected onto the building, in a reference to Dink’s last article in which he mentioned that he felt “dove-like anxiety” due to death threats he had received.

On the same day the article was published, Dink was assassinated by a then 17-year-old jobless high-school dropout, Ogün Samast, who was sentenced to almost 23 years in jail back in 2011 after confessing to the killing.

Through deeper investigation, Turkish judicial and security authorities discovered a FETÖ connection behind the assassination.

Turkish authorities thus started a new investigation of the role in the assassination plot of senior FETÖ terror group figures, including cult leader Fetullah Gülen, fugitive former prosecutor Zekeriya Öz, and former senior police officers Ali Fuat Yılmazer and Ramazan Akyürek.

According to an indictment by Istanbul prosecutors, Dink’s assassination constituted an important milestone that sparked a series of events leading to the defeated coup of July 15, 2016.

The case in which 76 suspects were on trial has been concluded with a verdict by a first court on March 26, 2021. However, it is still in the process of legal appeal.