Gendarmery and police officers pictured with Dink's murderer removed from offices

PanARMENIAN.Net - Four police officers and four gendarmery officers were removed from offices in Turkey's northern city of Samsun on Friday, over footage showing some security troops posing for "souvenir pictures" with the alleged murderer of Agos editor Hrant Dink. The Turkish Interior Ministry announced its decision to dismiss four police officers in Samsun where Ogun Samast, 17, the alleged murderer of Dink, was arrested. Furthermore, the Gendarme General Command also transferred four of its staff. This happened after private TGRT television channel broadcast on Thursday night a video footage showing Samast, who has confessed to the murder of the journalist, posing in front of a Turkish flag, flanked by some uniformed security officials. The images and footage were taken at the anti-terror department in Samsun, where Samast was arrested 32 hours after Dink was shot dead outside his newspaper offices in Istanbul on Jan. 19.



The footage had emerged as an embarrassment for Samsun security forces, which were accused by the press as having treated Samast the murderer as a "hero." During a weekly press briefing in Ankara, the spokesman of the Security Directorate General Ismail Caliskan said a probe had been launched to find out by whom or why the video footage and images were shot. Caliskan added that inspectors of the interior ministry have been carrying out an investigation in northern cities of Trabzon, Samsun, Istanbul and Ankara, report Turkish media.