Six suspects detained in murder case of Turkish-Armenian journalist Dink

ISTANBUL

Six suspects, including a journalist, were detained on March 21 as part of an ongoing investigation into the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, state-run Anadolu Agency has reported.

An Istanbul prosecutor issued a detention warrant for eight suspects for publishing images and footage of murderer Ogün Samast in some media outlets in 2007 and 2016 in front of a Turkish flag shortly after his apprehension in the Black Sea province of Samsun.

Police later detained journalist Muammer Ay and other suspects Murat Bayrak, Yüksel Avan, Birol Ustaoğlu, Yakup Kurtaran and Ahmet Çetiner in simultaneous operations conducted in six provinces.

The search for the other two suspects is ongoing.

Meanwhile, the Istanbul public prosecutor’s office also demanded another arrest warrant for the Gülenist prosecutor Zekeriya Öz, lawyer Halil İbrahim Koca, and journalists Faruk Mercan, Adem Yavuz and Ekrem Dumanlı.

Dink was shot dead at the age of 52 in broad daylight outside the offices of the Turkish-Armenian weekly newspaper Agos in central Istanbul on Jan. 19, 2007.

Ogün Samast, then a 17-year-old jobless high-school dropout, confessed to the murder and was sentenced to almost 23 years in jail in 2011.

But the case grew into a wider scandal after it emerged that the security forces had been aware of a plot to kill Dink but failed to act.