ANKARA (Doğan News Agency)—The prosecutor’s office of Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals has asked the top court to overturn the rulings in the Hrant Dink murder case, arguing that the assassination was organized.
“It is obvious that the murder was not an ordinary killing, the actions filed in the report had the goals of causing chaos in society, weakening authority, disrupting the unity and territorial integrity of the state and putting our country in a disturbing position,” the office’s appeal, made public on Thursday, read.
Dink, the founder and editor of the Agos Newspaper, was assassinated in Istanbul in January 2007 by Ogün Samast, a 17-year old Turkish nationalist, in front of the offices of Agos, the weekly for which he was the editor-in-chief.
After two years of proceedings Samast was convicted on July 25, 2011, of premeditated murder and illegal possession of a firearm by Istanbul’s Juvenile Court for Serious Crimes and sentenced to 22 years and 10 months. Another suspect, Yasin Hayal, was convicted of ordering the murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
However, the court ruled that Dink’s murder was not an organized crime despite serious claims that some civil servants were “indirectly” involved.
The appeal by the prosecutor’s office also noted that there was no active investigation in the beginning to determine the network among the conspirators.
The Turkish Presidency’s State Supervisory Council (DDK) recommended in an official report in February 2012 that top police and gendarmerie officials be prosecuted in the Dink murder case due to their alleged negligence before and after the journalist’s killing.
