Arrest order issued for two policemen in Dink murder case

ISTANBUL

DAILY NEWS Photo

An Istanbul court has issued an arrest order for two policemen involved in the inquiry into the killing of Hrant Dink, the Turkish Armenian journalist, as the case deepens. 

The court accepted on Jan. 12 the prosecutor’s demand to cancel the release of Özkan Mumcu and Muhittin Zenit, two police officers who were on duty at the police department in the Black Sea province of Trabzon when Dink was killed in Istanbul.

The two suspects testified to the court and were released immediately on Dec. 26, 2014.

The prosecutor said both officers were guilty of negligence in the crime that resulted in Dink’s death and misused their authority.

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.