October 06, 2015•Update: October 07, 2015
ISTANBUL
Three former and serving police officers were arrested Tuesday over the murder of prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.
Ex-officers Faruk Sari and Osman Gulbel and police officer Onur Karakaya were detained after an Istanbul prosecutor ordered the arrests of nine suspects.
The nine are said to have assisted in Dink’s 2007 killing as well as forging, concealing and destroying official documents.
The arrest orders were issued by Gokalp Kokcu, a prosecutor at Istanbul’s terror and organized crimes unit.
The suspects include Ahmet Ilhan Guler and Yunus Yazar, former senior officers at the Istanbul police's intelligence department, as well as Coskun Cakar, the ex-deputy chairman of the department.
Five other former police officers have already been convicted over the case.
Dink, one of the founders of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian Agos newspaper, was killed outside his office in Istanbul on Jan. 19, 2007.
His murder sparked widespread protests and led to speculation about the involvement of far-right groups and claims of a cover-up.
Ogun Samast, of Trabzon on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, was jailed for 23 years in 2011. Samast, who was aged 17 years at the time of the killing, claimed he killed Dink for “insulting Turkishness”.
