Turkey: Hrant Dink remembered 14 years after murder

By Murat Paksoy

ISTANBUL (AA) - Hrant Dink, a prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist, was remembered Monday 14 years after he was assassinated.

Born in Turkey’s eastern Malatya province in 1954, in 1996 Dink established the Agos newspaper in Istanbul, a publication that since has been published in both Armenian and Turkish. He also acted as the paper’s editor-in-chief.

On Jan. 19, 2007, Dink was assassinated by Ogun Samas on Halaskargazi Street, a busy thoroughfare in the Istanbul’s Sisli district.

Fleeing the city after the murder, Samas was caught the next day by police in the Black Sea province of Samsun.

After the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) tried to overthrow the Turkish state on Dec. 17-25, 2013 – a precursor to its defeated 2016 coup – the legal process regarding Dink's assassination took on a new dimension.

Through deeper investigation, Turkish judicial and security authorities discovered a FETO connection behind the assassination.

Turkish authorities thus started a new investigation of the role in the assassination plot of senior FETO terror group figures, including cult leader Fetullah Gulen, fugitive former prosecutor Zekeriya Oz, and former senior police officers Ali Fuat Yilmazer and Ramazan Akyurek.

According to an indictment by Istanbul prosecutors, Dink’s assassination constituted an important milestone which sparked a series of events leading to the defeated coup of July 15, 2016.

The assassination, planned by the FETO terror group, intended to undermine Turkey's standing in the international community, the indictment said.

In his book Red Friday – named for the day Dink was assassinated – Nedim Sener, a Turkish journalist who is often targeted by FETO members, claimed that the assassination plot was known by certain law enforcement and security organs which had been infiltrated by FETO terrorists.

*Writing by Ahmet Gencturk​​​​​​​