New suspects in  Hrant Dink Asasination case

ArmInfo. There are new suspects fetched out  due to  Hrant Dink, the Akos weekly Chief Editor assassination case.

According to the information of Akos newspaper, Gekalp Kekchu, the prosecutor, required to arrest Fethullah Gyulen ( Turkish religious person also accused in state coup attempt of July 15, 2016), and Ex- prosecutor Zekeria Oza, who is on the run, former Chief Editor of Azam newspaper Ekrem Dumanly, Bugun media journalists Adem yavuz Arslan and Farouk Merdjani, as well as one of lawyers of Gyulen Khalil Ibrahim Kodjai.

The Prosecutor mentioned that these persons are affiliated to the assassination Of Hrant Dink. They communicated via phone before and after the murder, developed options to capture Jugust Samast, who killed Dink, and presented  the situation to the public at their convenience. It is stated that they would be unable to do all this without informing Gyulen.

It is mentioned that six of eight suspects are already arrested. They are suspected also in publishing the picture of Jugust Samast, the murderer of  Hrant Dink, via Internet.

To remind, Dink was assassinated in Istanbul on 19 January 2007 by Ogun Samast,  a 17-year-old Turkish nationalist, but the customers of the crime  were not detected. The Dink murder trial opened in Istanbul on 2 July  2007. Eighteen people were charged at Istanbul Heavy Penal Court No  14 in connection with the journalist's assassination. Since the main  suspect, Ogun Samast was younger than 18, the hearing was not public.  Reportedly, the defendants Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel repeated  their testimonies given to the security forces and prosecutor. The  court decided to release the defendants Osman Altay, Irfan Ozkan, Salih Hacisalihoglu and Veysel Toprak to be tried without remand and  adjourned the hearing to 1 October.  On 25 July 2011, Samast was  convicted of premeditated murder and illegal possession of a firearm  by Istanbul's Heavy Juvenile Criminal Court. He was sentenced to 22  years and 10 months in prison, and could be eligible for parole in  2021, after serving two thirds of his sentence. Another suspect, Yasin Hayal, was convicted of ordering the murder and was sentenced  to life imprisonment. In July 2014, the Turkish Supreme Court ruled  that the investigation into the killing had been flawed, thus paving  the way for trials of police officials and other public authorities.  In the pursuit of this case hearings were held, and in January 2017  Ali Fuat Y?lmazer, the former head of Turkey's police intelligence branch, gave testimony that the killing was "deliberately not prevented" and security authorities in Istanbul and Trabzon were responsible.