Court asked to investigate Ergenekon link in Dink murder

The İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court is hearing the trial. Monday was the 12th session in the 20-suspect trial. Five of the suspects are jailed, while others had earlier been released pending trial. The panel of judges on Monday ruled to keep the five suspects under arrest. The suspects include Erhan Tuncel, a former police informant who is believed to have supplied the hit man with a gun; Ogün Samast, the ultranationalist teenager who gunned Dink down outside his office in 2001; and Yasin Hayal, believed to have acted with Tuncel in masterminding the Dink murder.

In addition to requesting information about possible phone and wired communication between the Dink murder suspects and those in the Ergenekon trial, the panel of judges decided to request photocopies of all documents currently held by the 13th High Criminal Court regarding an alleged plan of psychological warfare that included attacks against non-Muslim minorities which is now being held as evidence against some army officers who are suspects in the second Ergenekon trial, one of the two ongoing trials into Ergenekon.

Erhan Tuncel and Yasin Hayal -- two of the prime suspects in the murder trial of Agos Editor-in-Chief Hrant Dink -- were brought to court by police for the 12th session in the trial on Monday.

During Monday’s hearing, the panel of judges also requested information from the Ankara Telecommunication Communications Administration about wired communications between Orhan Özbaş and Turan Meral, two of the witnesses who have testified in the trial. The court also decided to have the co-plaintiff lawyers in the case, who had earlier sought the arrest of these two individuals along with another person named Kaan Gerçek, file their own criminal complaints. It also decided to again request information from the İstanbul Police Department on an Internet café on Şafak Street, where Dink was shot on Jan. 19, 2007, including business licenses and other documents of the store. This is the second time the court has asked for these documents. The court also decided to write to the Şişli mayor’s office for information on the Internet café and also to the Uşak High Criminal Court to get Cahit Kılıç, a police officer who was running the Internet café on the day of the murder but was later assigned to a post with the Uşak Police Department, to appear in court and testify as a witness.

The panel of judges also decided to subpoena Erhan Sevil and Mehmet Ali Temelocak as witnesses for the next hearing. It in addition ruled to bring Mesut Kadri, another witness, to the next hearing by police force if necessary. It furthermore made the decision to correspond with the Ümraniye Prison Directorate and the Ümraniye Prosecutor’s Office so that Erhan Özen, who is in Ümraniye Prison charged with another crime and who has requested to testify in the trial, can be brought to court.

The panel also ruled to have the suspects, the prosecutors and all the co-plaintiffs and their lawyers meet at the chambers of Resul Çakır on April 12 to review three secret reports sent to the court by the National Police Department.

The panel of judges said a witness whose identity will be kept secret will be testifying in the next hearing, which is scheduled for May 10. The panel of judges also overturned a request from suspect Tuncel and from the co-plaintiff lawyers to hear police officers Ramazan Akyürek, Selim Kutkan, Ahmet İlhan Güler, Ali Fuat Yılmazer, Reşat Altay, Hüseyin Yavuzdemir and Sabri Uzun as witnesses, saying the testimonies of these officers would not contribute to the existing testimony from various officers. The court in addition ruled to have an Armenian-speaking translator appointed for the secret witness who will testify at the next hearing.

What the witness had said

The court also noted that this witness, who was supposed to be ready for Monday’s hearing, was not in attendance and ruled to write a notice to the İstanbul Prosecutor’s Office to make sure the witness testifies at the next session.

In addition to this the İstanbul Police Department yesterday released a statement denying some news reports which stated that the police department was responsible for the secret witness not showing up to testify on Monday because the department was supposed to bring the witness to court. The statement said the department never received any directive to bring the witness to court on Feb. 8. A later statement in the day from Presiding Judge of the 14th High Criminal Court Erkan Canak confirmed this, noting that the witness could not be summoned to the stand due to the absence of a translator.

Slain journalist Hrant Dink's wife, Rakel, is seen among the protestors in front of an İstanbul court.

This witness, who was supposed to be heard on Monday, had said in his initial testimony to prosecutors that Hayal and Samast had fired at Dink together on the day of the murder, contrary to the perception that Samast was the only hitman. The witness, who uses a translator, testified to the prosecutors on Jan. 30, 2007, saying a man who appeared to be around 40 to 45 years of age and 1.65 meters in height first approached Dink and spoke to him for three to five seconds. The witness testified: “I saw this person make physical contact with Dink. At the same time, I saw two people, one from the front and one from behind, approach Dink. The one that was coming from behind had brown hair, a round face, a dirty beard, fair skin, short fingers, was study and about 1.70 meters tall. He looked like he was high on drugs; he was wearing a black coat that went down to his knees, a colored sweater inside his coat and as far as I can remember, he shot at Hrant Dink. The one that I later learned was Ogün Samast also shot twice at the same time as the other one, and he loudly uttered something that had the word “Armenian” in it as he pulled his gun.” The secret witness also identified the second gunman as Hayal from the pictures he was shown.

Cage plan and Dink connection

Meanwhile, the co-plaintiff lawyers in the 12th trial demanded that the court investigate whether Dink’s killing was part of the Cage plan, an alleged military plot to create panic and chaos recently exposed by the Taraf daily. The plan mostly focused on killing non-Muslims and bombing mosques to create chaos that would eventually help the plotters take over the government.