Hrant Dink Murder Case

TO THE CHIEF JUSTICE OF (14TH) HIGH CRIMINAL COURT OF ISTANBUL File No: 2007/428 ATTENDEES : 1) Rahil Dink- Domicile address is included in the file 2) Hasrof Dink- Domicile address is included in the file 3) Delal Dink- Domicile address is included in the file 4) Arat Dink- Domicile address is included in the file 5) Sera Dink- Domicile address is included in the file ATTORNEYS : The names, surnames and signatures of attorneys are given below DEFENDANTS : 1) ERHAN TUNCEL – Under arrest 2) YASİN HAYAL – Under arrest nd 3) OGÜN SAMAST – Under arrest (pending trial at the 2 Juvenile High Criminal Court of Istanbul) 4) ZEYNEL ABİDİN YAVUZ 5) ERSİN YOLCU 6) AHMET İSKENDER 7) TUNCAY UZUNDAL 8) SALİH HACISALİHOĞLU 9) VEYSEL TOPRAK 10) OSMAN ALPAY 11) İRFAN ÖZKAN 12) MUSTAFA ÖZTÜRK 13) ŞENOL AKDUMAN 14) NUMAN ŞİŞMAN 15) ALPER ESİRGEMEZ 16) ERBİL SUSAMAN 17) YAŞAR CİHAN 18) HALİS EGEMEN 19) OSMAN HAYAL 20) COŞKUN İĞCİ PLACE AND DATE OF THE CRIME : Istanbul and Trabzon, 19.01.2007 and the period before 1 OUR OPINION ON THE MERITS OF THE CASE - I - INTRODUCTION The trial process ongoing for more than four years as well as the various sections of the opinion submitted by the prosecution have undeniably confirmed that our allegation - “the defendants of this case are only the Trabzon leg of the large and professional organization that committed the murder of Hrant Dink” - is not merely an intangible assumption but it points out to the truth. The process has clearly revealed the roles and responsibilities of all governmental/political actors, from the General Staff to the judicial authorities, from government spokespersons to law enforcement authorities and from the media to paramilitary forces, in the murder of Hrant Dink, in the failure to prevent the murder, and in the failure to identify the actual perpetrators. The striking harmony between the abovementioned agencies and mechanisms in the preparation and commission of the murder of Dink, in concealing and tampering with the evidence, in covering up the truth, and in drawing the limits and framework of the judicial procedures have all revealed the fact that the process was managed from a single focal point and that there exists a powerful apparatus and mentality which legitimizes the murder and normalizes impunity However, these undeniable findings, revealed throughout the process, have not been made the subject of an investigation despite the corresponding judgment of the ECHR, the various inquiries conducted by different agencies of the state including the Prime Ministry Inspection Board and the TGNA Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, and despite all the efforts made by the intervening party and the public pressure. Our opinion on the case was prepared with the purpose of exposing the characteristics of the apparatus mentioned above and how it works, how it is reproduced in similar cases as in this oneas well as exposing the roles, functions and responsibilities of the defendants of this case in the murder. The text presented here consists of the following chapters: Introduction, Who Was Hrant Dink and Why Was He Killed, the Preliminary Phase Leading to the Murder, the Role and Function of the Media in the Process Leading to the Murder, the Role and Function of the Judiciary in the Process Leading to the Murder, Other Developments in the Process Leading to the Murder, The Investigation Phase, The Prosecution Phase, Law no 4483 on ‘Immunity’, the Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Issues Related to the Judiciary and the Trial, and Conclusion. Our assessments, especially those presented in the Conclusion section, did benefit from the annexed articles of Prof. Dr. Selim Deringil, Prof. Dr. Cemil Koçak, Prof. Dr. Yasemin İnceoğlu, Dr. Ceren Sözeri and Dr. Ayşe Hür’, and the articles and books of Prof. Dr. Baskın Oran, Prof.Dr. Taner Akçam and Sait Çetinoğlu. 2 WHO WAS HRANT DİNK AND WHY WAS HE KILLED Hrant Dink was born in Malatya on September 15, 1954. He moved to Istanbul with his family when he was five years old. After his mother and father were separated, Hrant Dink and his two brothers went to live at the Gedikpasa Armenian Protestant Church Nursery School. The three brothers all attended Incirdibi Primary school, which was run by the same church, in winter time and lived at the Tuzla Armenian Children’s Camp of the school during their summers. Hrant Dink graduated from Bezciyan junior high school and studied at the Surp Hac Tibrevank boarding school. While studying zoology at Istanbul University’s Faculty of Science, he met and later on married Rakel Yagbasan, originally from the Armenian Varto tribe from Silopi in the Southeast of Turkey. In the same days, he started working for Şınork Kalustyan, the Pattriach of Armenians in Turkey. Having receied his graduate degree from the zoology department, Dink started studying philosophy at Istanbul University. Concurrently, he was influenced by the left movement unfolding in these days in Turkey. He started to do politics in the lines of Turkey Communist Party/Marxist-Leninist. He was worried that his political engagement could be linked to his Armenian identity and harm the Armenian community living in Turkey, so he changed his name to the Turkish name “Firat” through a court verdict. Within this period Hrant Dink and his wife Rakel took over the administration of the Tuzla Childrens Camp. When the Tuzla Camp was confiscated by the state, they struggled against this injustice together. In this period, Dink was was taken into custody and arrested three times due to his political views and on various grounds. In 1980-1990 Dink ran a bookstore with his brothers. In 1990s, he also started writing for the Armenian daily newspaper, "Marmara" under the pseudonym “Çutak” *violin in Armenian+ where he wrote reviews of books about Armenian history printed in Turkey which means. In this period he made himself known thanks to the corrections he was sending to newspapers about the false news. He told the Armenian Patriarchate that “the Armenian community is living so introvert, if we better explain ourselves then prejudices will disappear” and took the lead in the foundation of a newspaper in Turkish-Armenian languages. He assumed the roles of the founder, editor-in-chief and chief columnist for Agos Newspaper which had its first issue circulated on On April 5th 1996. Apart from Agos, he also wrote columns for Yeni Yüzyıl, Zaman and Birgün daily newspapers. In his articles, he always highlighted that all ethnic communities in Turkey should peacefully live together and advocated that the Armenian community should have a central civic institution apart from the patriarchate. As regards the events of 1915, he called the Armenian Diaspora to take up a softer stance in their struggle which does not include the word genocide. Having attended many conferences in America, Australia, Europe and Armenia, Hrant Dink became known with the new discourse he devised while debating and questioning process on “Armenian Identity and Armenian History”. Hrant and Rakel Dink had three children. Dink was the editor-in-chief and the columnist of the AGOS Newspaper. 3 He was making lots of efforts to turn this newspapers into one of the democractic and dissident voices of Turkey and in particular to share the injustice faced by the Armenian community with the public at large. One of the main objectives of the newspaper has been to contribute to the creation of a dialogue climate between Turks and Armenians, between Turkey and Armenia. Dink was also a participant and a member to various democratic platforms and civil society organisations. If we are to seek an answer to the question “Who was Hrant Dink?” from his own articles, then we can make a small compilation of his following articles: In his article “This is how I feel” (“Ruh Halimdir”) of 5 June 1998, Hrant Dink wrote as follows; This is how I feel I am a citizen of Turkey… I am an Armenian… And I am an Anatolian right down to my bones. Not for a single day have I contemplated abandoning my country and building my future in the ‘readymade heaven of freedoms’ known as the West, or latching on like a leech to democracies other people have created by paying heavy dues. My main concern has always been to transform my own country into such a heaven of freedoms. When my country cried for Sivas massacres, I cried too. When my people fought against criminal gangs, I fought alongside them. I paired my own fate to my country’s quest for its freedom. As for the rights I can or can’t enjoy, they didn’t come free, I have paid for them, and I continue to do so. But now… I have had enough both of the bogus flattery that always speaks of “Our Armenians”, and the kind of provocation that constantly repeats the phrase “The Traitors Amongst Us”. I am sick and fed up of both the exclusion that forces me to forget that I am a normal or regular citizen, and the embrace that almost suffocates me. *** I neither had the chance to take to the streets for April 24 demonstrations, nor could I light a candle in memory of my ancestors. But I neither abandoned them in those days gone by, nor did I allow them to be petrified in the present. I shouldered the mission of “making them a living part of my own life”… To the utmost limits of my powers, I carried them high and kept their memory alive. I struggled relentlessly against those who attempted to prevent me from doing so. It goes without saying that I know the fate my ancestors suffered.

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