Two policemen arrested over Dink murder

Hrant Dink was assassinated on a busy street outside the office of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos in Istanbul’s Şişli district in 2007.

An Istanbul court has arrested two policemen involved in the inquiry into the killing of Hrant Dink, the Turkish Armenian journalist.

The court accepted on Jan. 13 the prosecutor’s demand to arrest Muhittin Zenit and Özkan Mumcu, two police officers on duty at the police department in the Black Sea province of Trabzon when Dink was killed in Istanbul. 

Zenit and Mumcu had testified to the court and were released immediately on Dec. 26, 2014. 

The prosecutor had said both officers were guilty of negligence in the crime that resulted in Dink’s death and misused their authority. The court had canceled the release of the suspects on Jan. 12.

Dink was assassinated by Ogün Samast, who is serving a sentence of 22 years and 10 months in a high-security prison, on a busy street outside the office of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos in Istanbul’s Şişli district. 

Yusuf Hayal and Erhan Tuncel are accused of convincing Samast in the Black Sea province of Trabzon to shoot Dink. 

Civil servants and institutions allegedly implicated in the murder of Dink should be investigated, the Constitutional Court ruled on July 17, 2014. The ruling became a milestone in the case that has been lingering since the killing in 2007. 

Since then, former Istanbul police chief Celalettin Cerrah, former Trabzon police chief Reşat Altay, former Trabzon police intelligence branch chief Faruk Sarı, former Istanbul deputy governor Ergun Güngör and former Istanbul police intelligence chief Ahmet İlhan Güler have testified as suspects in the case.