Six detained in Hrant Dink murder investigation

PanARMENIAN.Net - Six suspects, including military officers and a journalist, were detained on Tuesday, March 21 as an inquiry into the 2007 murder of prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink deepens, Daily Sabah reports.

Upon the order of prosecutor Gökalp Kökçü, security forces detained the suspects, while two others, a police chief dismissed from duty and a retired military, with detention warrants were still being sought as Daily Sabah went to print.

It is unclear what the suspects are accused of. Media outlets reported that they were detained in operations in the cities of Ankara, Sakarya, Kırıkkale, Elazığ and Samsun.

The suspects were identified as military officer Murat Bayrak, police chiefs Yakup Kurtaran and Ahmet Çetiner, noncommissioned officers Yüksel Avan and Birol Ustaoğlu and journalist Muammer Ay.

State-run Anadolu Agency (AA) reported that the detentions were related to an incident involving Ogün Samast, the teenage killer of Hrant Dink.

Samast, a self-styled nationalist, had posed with security personnel against the backdrop of a Turkish flag during his detention in Samsun, the northern city where he was captured.

Several media outlets had published Samast's photo with police and gendarmerie officers who were apparently cheering the murder.

Dink was the editor-in-chief of Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos when he was shot dead outside the newspaper's offices in Istanbul in January 2007.

Samast, then 17, fled the scene but was captured at a bus station in Samsun, a city near his hometown of Trabzon. The murder was championed by ultra-nationalists at the time while Samast and other suspects accused of masterminding the assassination were sentenced to various prison terms.

Dink, 53, was an outspoken journalist advocating for the reconciliation of Turks and Armenians whom have strained relations over the ongoing "genocide" dispute.