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Police Officers Arrested in Dink Murder Case

ISTANBUL (A.W.)—Two Trabzon police officers, Özkan Mumcu and Muhitten Zenit, were arrested on Tues. Jan. 13 and are being charged with negligence in the 2007 assassination of Agos Editor  Hrant Dink, reported Turkish sources. Both officers were part of the Trabzon branch of the Turkish National Police during the events and were present during the investigation of the murder.  The two officers also provided testimonies for prosecutor Gökalp Kökçü during the investigation. The prosecutor referred them to the court for an arrest, but Mumcu and Zenit were later released by the Istanbul 5th Criminal Judge.

Prosecutor Kökçü filed an appeal protesting the court’s decision to release the officers and the Istanbul 6th Criminal Judge issued a warrant for Zenit and Mumcu’s arrest. Kökçü said that both Mumcu and Zenit were guilty of negligence and misusing their authority which resulted in Dink’s death. What’s more, tape recordings of a phone conversation between Zenit and Erhan Tuncel, who was working as an informant for Trabzon Police department at the time and was later accused of initiating the events that led to Dink’s death, were leaked to the media. The conversation suggests that Zenit knew about the plot to assassinate Dink.

In 2012, 19 suspects were acquitted of charges of being members of a terrorist organization that plotted Dink’s murder. Another suspect, Yasin Hayal, received a life sentence on charges of instigating the premeditated murder.

The Dink family and human rights organizations condemned the 2012 ruling. The Dink family lawyers say the murder was a planned act.

In 2011, an Istanbul court sentenced Ogun Samast, a 17-year-old Turkish ultra-nationalist, to 22 years and 10 months in prison for killing Dink in front of the Agos newspaper building. Samast was prosecuted as a minor, and received a lenient sentence for his crime.

In 2010, the European Court of Human Rights ordered the Turkish government to pay compensation to the Dink family, after a ruling found the state guilty of failing to protect the murdered journalist.

 

An earlier version of this article erroneously identified the two police officers as being “Istanbul police officers.” They are in fact from the Trabzon branch of the Turkish National Police.

 

6 Comments (Open | Close)

6 Comments To "Police Officers Arrested in Dink Murder Case"

#1 Comment By nora davidian On January 14, 2015 @ 1:33 pm

Are these officers in jail? Are they going to be tried?
Re: the killer, Samast, he was sentenced to 22 years. That’s not lenient. It was right!! Was his sentence commuted?

#2 Comment By Caroline Sarian On January 14, 2015 @ 1:43 pm

They were arrested almost to the day of the 8th anniversary of Dink’s death. RIP.

#3 Comment By Avery On January 14, 2015 @ 7:14 pm

The arrests are part of the slimy denialist Turk AG denialist campaign to blunt the impact of the 100th anniversary of Armenian Genocide.

A couple of low ranking cops will be thrown under the bus, if that, to show to EU and the rest of the West that Turks are doing something: “No Armenian Genocide, see ? We love Armenians: why, we are even prosecuting two of our own, proud Turks, for murdering a filthy infidel gyavur. Turks are honorable, fair, proud people: there was no so-called Armenian Genocide. Muslims are incapable of committing Genocide: our Paramount Sultan Erdogan said so”.

The real conspirators will never be brought to justice by the Neo-Nazi, denialist, criminal Turk State because the State itself organized the murder of Hrant Dink.

#4 Comment By Serous Wang On January 14, 2015 @ 9:06 pm

JUSTICE is finally beginning to be ser

#5 Comment By Random Armenian On January 19, 2015 @ 2:33 pm

I’m not holding my breath.

#6 Comment By Lulu Kebab On January 20, 2015 @ 3:03 pm

You are missing the point, the police officers are part of the Gulen Movement. When they controlled the police apparatus in Turkey and Schools which gave all the answers for Police academy entrance exams to THEIR community so they would “Move into the arteries of the system until they reached all power centers”
The trigger man was a mere 17 year old “STUDENT’ from Trabazon, then the Gulen controlled police has Hrant Dink’s best friends arrested. Journalists Ahmet Sik and Nedem Sener for investigating the cover up of Dink’s murder and writing “Imam Ordusu” (Imam’s Army)
Fill in the dots yourself.