Hrant Dink, a prominent Armenian Turkish journalist who was gunned down on Jan. 19, 2007, in Istanbul, was commemorated at a ceremony on Wednesday on the spot where he was assassinated. Dink’s murder, which sparked widespread protests and calls for justice, made the headlines for his ethnic identity, especially after the murderer was revealed to be an ultranationalist. However, further investigation has disclosed the role of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) in the murder and a legal investigation of the assassination still continues.
A crowd gathered outside Sebat Apartment building in Şişli, where a large poster of Dink adorned the facade of the place. It was there Dink was shot dead, just outside the Agos newspaper where he served as editor-in-chief. Mourners left carnations on the sidewalk where Dink’s lifeless body laid and lit candles as Turkish and Armenian songs blared from loudspeakers. The ceremony began at 3 p.m. local time (12 p.m. GMT), during which friends and family of Dink made speeches to remember the late journalist.
Dink’s killing in broad daylight sparked unprecedented protests as thousands of people took to the streets to show solidarity with the journalist, under the motto of “Buradayız Ahparig” (we are here brother, an amalgam of Turkish and Armenian words).
The assassin, a 17-year-old named Ogün Samast, was captured hours later in the northern province of Samsun. Samast and two other suspects, identified as the people who masterminded the attack and motivated Samast to kill Dink, were put on trial in 2007. More defendants were included in the case, which was long treated as something simply linked to an ultranationalist cell targeting Dink for his ethnic identity and outspoken views of then-frigid Turkish-Armenian relations.
"A rapprochement and this reflecting on the people on both sides was Hrant’s biggest dream," said Agos editor-in-chief Yetvart Danzikyan, a friend of Dink, during the remembrance ceremony. Ankara and Yerevan recently started talks to ease tensions and are set to resume flights in early February, amid hopes of reopening borders after decades of diplomatic freeze. "He would be at the forefront to promote such normalization if he was alive today," Danzikyan said.
Samast was sentenced to 22 years and 10 months in prison, but the trial and investigation took another turn when a prosecutor, now wanted on charges of membership of Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), said in his indictment that Ergenekon, "a terrorist group," was behind the murder. Ergenekon was the name of a network of individuals described as a terrorist group by prosecutors, police chiefs and judges who orchestrated trials against them. Years later, it was discovered that Ergenekon was an organization concocted by FETÖ’s infiltrators in the judiciary and law enforcement to imprison people the terrorist group targeted using trumped-up charges and forged evidence.
Though Samast was sentenced, the trial and a parallel investigation into his links continued for years, an unusually protracted period of time and ambiguity that is now blamed on FETÖ’s role in the investigation. When the terrorist group was designated as a security threat in late 2013 after two coup attempts and its infiltrators in the judiciary were suspended and detained, the course of the investigation changed yet again.
In 2014, a court paved the way for the indictment of public officials over their role in the murder. Former police chiefs, who were arrested for their FETÖ links, were also tried in this new case of Dink’s murder. A new indictment included FETÖ leader Fetullah Gülen, prosecutors and journalists linked to the terrorist group in the case. Prosecutors stated that the murder was the first violent act of FETÖ in its bid to seize power in Turkey. Gülen and others had apparently aimed to imprison their critics or those blocking their infiltration into law enforcement, judiciary and army by linking them to the murder, under the guise of “Ergenekon” probes. Last year, six FETÖ-linked suspects, including former police chiefs, were sentenced for a cover-up of murder while a trial is underway for fugitive suspects including Fetullah Gülen.
