2023-11-16 02:26:40
A decision which is neither to the taste of the opposition nor to the press freedom bodies. The main assassin of Hrant Dink, a famous Turkish journalist of Armenian origin, who was sentenced in 2011 to 23 years in prison for this murder, was released Wednesday evening for “good behavior”, Turkish media reported.
According to the private channels NTV and CNN Türk and many other publications including the DHA agency and Agos, the newspaper where Hrant Dink worked, Ogün Samast – the author of the shots fired against the journalist – was released from prison in Bolu (north) “at 7:50 p.m.” (4:50 p.m. GMT) on the grounds that “it was determined that he met the conditions of parole,” NTV said.
Sixteen years and ten months in prison
This information has not been confirmed from an official source, nor by any public media. Hrant Dink, editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, was killed in front of his publication’s headquarters on a sidewalk in Istanbul on January 19, 2007. A sign of the shock caused by the murder of this 52-year-old journalist. years old, champion of reconciliation between Turks and Armenians, more than 100,000 people marched on the day of his funeral. Ogün Samast, a minor at the time of the events, ultimately spent sixteen years and ten months in prison.
After his conviction, Hrant Dink’s family had demanded for years that those behind the murder be found, not believing in the theory of a solitary act. An Istanbul court finally sentenced four people, including two former police chiefs, to life in prison in March 2021. According to Turkish media, 24 other defendants were sentenced to various prison terms following the 131st hearing of a trial in which 77 people were indicted.
An “incredible injustice”
But many security force officials, including former police chiefs from Istanbul and Trabzon (north-east), accused by Hrant Dink’s family, were acquitted for “prescription of the facts”. For the leader of the CHP, the main opposition party, Özgür özel, this release is “inconceivable”. “This is an incredible injustice committed against an important community in Turkey, the Armenian community,” he told online media T24.
“It is clear that someone protected Ogün Samast,” he accused, adding that if the latter “can be released for good behavior, then talking about justice in this country is really lacking in scruples.” The representative in Turkey of the organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Erol Onderoglu, denounced “very painful news for the Dink family and all those who knew this man of peace”.
VIDEO. This Palestinian journalist learns of the death of his colleague Mohamed Hatab live in Gaza
“Turkey had sixteen years and ten months (the time spent in prison by the assassin, editor’s note) to bring to justice all the state actors responsible for the preparation of this murder. Unfortunately, this was not the case,” he regretted. For RSF, however, “the release of the killer should not mark the end of the quest for the truth surrounding this odious assassination.”
#Turkey #murderer #journalist #Hrant #Dink #released #sixteen #years #prison