Ogün Samast, the convicted murderer of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, has claimed that he was told before carrying out the act that there would be government support behind him after committing the murder and that he should have no worries about it, Turkish Minute reported, citing the Artı Gerçek news website.
The 52-year-old Dink, editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian bilingual Agos weekly, was shot dead with two bullets to the head outside the newspaper’s headquarters in central İstanbul on Jan. 19, 2007 by Samast, then a 17-year-old jobless high school dropout.
Samast was arrested the following day.
After serving 16 years, 10 months, Samast was released from prison in western Bolu province on November 15, which led to outrage among opposition politicians, journalists, human rights activists and social media users.
Days after Samast’s release, the İstanbul 2nd Juvenile Court accepted an indictment seeking a prison sentence ranging from seven to 12 years for Samast on charges that he “committed crimes on behalf of an armed terrorist organization without being a member of it.”
The juvenile court merged Samast’s case with another ongoing trial at the İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court, involving 11 suspects, including Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel, for their alleged involvement in the crime Samast is accused of.
In the fourth hearing on Wednesday Samast, speaking about the day of the murder, said Hayal told him there would be government support behind him and that nothing would happen to him. He said Hayal did not reveal any names of the government officials who would take care of him after the deed was done.
“There were people following me at the crime scene. … I called Yasin. He said, ‘Don’t worry, they are from us, you go on.’ He didn’t mention names, but Yasin always assured me that the state was behind us,” Samast said.
He also stated that while giving a statement to the police in Samsun province after being apprehended for the murder, the police officers had told him to relax and be brave, assuring him that no one could touch him.
Samast also talked about Ramazan Akyürek and Ali Fuat Yılmazer, two of the defendants in the case and former police chiefs, who were given aggravated life sentences by the court for “premeditated murder” in connection with Dink’s assassination.
He said he didn’t know and hadn’t received any direct orders from the former police chiefs and had only heard their names mentioned by others.
The court decided to send the case to the prosecutor’s office for an opinion and ruled for the continuation of judicial control measures for Samast. The next hearing will take place on May 29, 2024.
Dink’s family and lawyers say justice will not have been served as long as the masterminds behind the murder and the state officials who allegedly did not prevent the murder, faciliated it or tried to cover it up, are not brought before a court.
Samast had confessed to the murder and was sentenced to almost 23 years in prison in 2011.
The İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court in 2021 separated the files of 13 fugitive suspects, including Fethullah Gülen, on the grounds that their defense statements were not delivered, also ruling that Dink’s murder was committed “in line with the objectives of FETÖ” – a derogatory term used by the Turkish government to refer to the faith-based movement inspired by Gülen as a terrorist organization.
For years, prosecutors have looked into alleged links between the suspects and Gülen, who is accused of masterminding a failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2016, although he strongly denies the charges.
The Turkish government’s ongoing crackdown on the Gülen movement was launched following corruption investigations in late 2013 that implicated Erdoğan’s close circle and intensified in the aftermath of the failed coup on July 15, 2016.
