8 Suspects Arrested in Hrant Dink Murder Case

ISTANBUL (Agos) — As part of Hrant Dink murder investigation, 8 people including gendarmerie personnel are arrested. Istanbul Prosecutor Kökçü claimed that these suspects had known the information concerning Ogün Samast 2 hours before he was caught.

The investigation carried out by Prosecutor Gökalp Kökçü covered the details of how Ogün Samat was caught in Samsun.

It is stated that Istanbul General Directorate of Security had received the information that the perpetrator Ogün Samast was on the way to Trabzon from Istanbul, though there was no revealed information concerning the identity of the perpetrator.

Hrant Dink, the founder of the bilingual Armenian-Turkish weekly newspaper Agos, was shot dead in an Istanbul street in January 2007.

Although a suspect was convicted, the case has been re-investigated several times amid concerns that police conspired to allow Dink’s killing to happen.

According to a judicial source who spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media, the eight suspects were held on charges of membership of terror organization and “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order”.

Ogun Samast, aged 17 at the time of the killing, claimed he murdered Dink for “insulting Turkishness” and was jailed for 23 years in 2011.

Since then, prosecutors have examined whether he acted alone.