Lawyer says Dink killer’s new testimony contradictory

PanARMENIAN.Net - The lawyer of Erhan Tuncel, an informant for the Trabzon Police Department who was accused of initiating the effort to have Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink murdered in 2007, has said that the recent testimony of the killer, Ogün Samast, is part of a plot designed to link the faith-based Hizmet movement with the murder.

According to Today’s Zaman, Tuncel's lawyer, Erdoğan Soruklu, told reporters that they had heard earlier that a plot was being designed regarding the Dink assassination and that someone was attempting to convince Samast, who was sentenced to 21 years and six months in prison in 2011 for assassinating Dink, to speak “as desired."

Seven years after the murder, Samast decided to testify as a witness to Prosecutor Yusuf Hakkı Doğan. Samast's latest testimony differs from what he said back in 2010. Most recently he claimed that while at Tuncel's house he heard a conversation between two people who were talking about Ramazan Akyürek, the former head of the intelligence unit of the National Police Department, and a police chief named Fuat.

Samast said that when he asked Yasin Hayal -- another suspect in the case who was sentenced to life in prison for inciting Samast to commit the murder -- about the names he overheard, he was told that Tuncel knew these people and that they were fully behind the plot to kill Dink. The testimony contradicts Samast's 2010 deposition that led to his conviction. He had earlier claimed that he never knew Tuncel and that Hayal was acting as a liaison to Tuncel.

Soruklu said Samast's testimony is contradictory, adding that it would be very easy to expose these contradictions.

The lawyer also said there were a lot of security cameras installed at the location where Dink was attacked, but just one recording was provided as evidence. “We believe that almost all the evidence and video collected from the security cameras was destroyed,” he said.

Hakan Bakırcıoğlu, a lawyer representing the Dink family, filed a complaint against police inspector Selim Kutkan, who was the head of the İstanbul Police Department's anti-terrorism unit when Dink was killed, for playing a role in the destruction of security camera footage from an ATM on the street where Dink was shot and killed. Bakırcıoğlu had said Kutkan was a lackey of Workers' Party (İP) leader Doğu Perinçek, who was given life without parole in August of 2013 in the trial against the Ergenekon terrorist organization, but was then released in March of this year.

Dink was assassinated in broad daylight outside the office of his Agos newspaper by an ultranationalist teenager in January 2007. Samast and 18 others were brought to trial. During the process, the lawyers for the Dink family and the co-plaintiffs in the case presented evidence indicating that Samast did not act alone.

Tuncel, who was accused of initiating the effort to have Dink murdered, was acquitted of all charges related to the killing, but was then rearrested during the retrial of the murder case early in 2014. He was released again in March of 2014 as part of a bill reducing the maximum period of arrest to five years.

There have been claims in the media that former Istanbul Deputy Governor Ergun Güngör and National Intelligence Organization (MİT) members invited Dink to the Istanbul Governor's Office to warn him of "possible danger if he continues to make controversial statements.”

Testifying for the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office on Dec 9 as a suspect in the trial into the Dink murder, Güngör reportedly told the prosecutors that his meeting with Dink at the governor's office took place “on an order from MİT.” Confirming MİT's role during his testimony, Güngör also stated that Dink was warned that his report about Sabiha Gökçen, the adopted daughter of the founder of the Turkish Republic, "might be manipulated by someone or some segments” during the conversation at the governor's office.

It was claimed that Güngör had summoned Dink to his office on Feb 24, 2004, where two MİT agents warned the journalist to be “more careful” about what he wrote. The meeting came a week after Dink had suggested that Gökçen was in fact an Armenian orphan. During the conversation, the deputy governor and the two MİT officials threatened Dink by saying things like, “We know who you are, but society may not” and “We are concerned that society might not be able to understand things like this.”