Hrant Dink's gunman was not Samast?

PanARMENIAN.Net - Five individuals convicted of unrelated crimes testified as witnesses yesterday in the murder trial of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who was shot dead in broad daylight by an ultra-nationalist teenager outside the office of his newspaper, Agos, in Istanbul on Jan. 17, 2007.



Witness Volkan Eryol, who testified in the Istanbul 14th High Criminal Court yesterday, said he had heard a cellmate named Ertugrul Balci state that it was not Ogun Samast, the teenager who is currently standing trial as the suspected hit man, but another person who shot Dink on that day, Today's Zaman reports.



Another witness, Sinasi Senturk, said he had heard details from Balci. The two witnesses said they had petitioned the court to testify when they heard the information Balci gave them in prison. In his testimony, Senturk said: "Balci told us that the individuals that are currently suspects in the Dink incident actually did not have anything to do with the murder. Normally, we wouldn't have paid attention, but Balci corresponded with important people. He also said he knew who the real murderer was."



The Dink family lawyers had previously stated their suspicions that a second person accompanied Samast on the day of the murder. Veli Halis Celik, another inmate at the Silivri Prison Complex where the other witnesses are also serving jail time for unrelated crimes, gave the same testimony.



Celik said Balci, who gave the information to the witnesses, was the son of Sukru Balci, a former police chief at the Istanbul Police Department.



The witnesses also noted that they were moved to a different ward after petitioning the court to testify as witnesses. Two other witnesses, named as Orcun Curek and Adil Orhan, reiterated the testimony of the earlier witnesses in yesterday's trial. Curek said Samast was used as a "pawn."

Court questions Samast.



A delegation of five lawyers from France also followed yesterday's trial. The French lawyers said they came to show solidarity with the Dink family. The Istanbul Bar Association released a press statement on the delegation's visit, saying the Paris Bar Association had requested to join the trial as observers; a request which was denied by the Istanbul Bar Association on the grounds that if delegation was granted observant status, it could harm the independence of the judiciary. The Istanbul Bar Association said they had invited the delegation from Paris to monitor the trial not as an institution, but as individuals.