In yesterday's (12 October) hearing of the case concerned with the murder of journalist and human rights defender Hrant Dink, the joint attorneys of Dink's family requested the acquisition of files and documents from 2 different trials in the context of hatred propaganda against non-Muslim minorities.
One of these cases is the trial about the killing of 3 people in a Publishing House in Zivre in the province of Malatya; the other one is the Ergenekon case.
Criminal complaint about authorities for not sending telephone tapping records
The lawyers claimed to file a criminal complaint against the Telecommunication Communication Presidency, the Trabzon and Istanbul Police Directorate and the Police General Directorate Intelligence Office Chief Ramazan Aykürek because they had not forwarded defendant Mustafa Öztürk's relevant telephone tapping records to the court.
Systematic campaign against minorities
In the morning session of the hearing before the Istanbul 14th High Criminal Court joint attorney Fethiye Çetin argued that the Hrant Dink murder was part of a systematic and planned campaign against minorities and groups of different faiths. In the same context the lawyer furthermore quoted the killing of priest Andrea Santoro in Trabzon, the stabbing of a Christian chaplain in Izmir and the massacre in a publishing house in Zivre.
Moreover, Çetin reminded that Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate spokesman Sevgi Erenerol held briefings with members of the General Staff, of the Air Force Commandership and various security istitutions which created a negative perception about minorities.
Çetin said that Erenerol had taken an active role in showing Dink as a target. The lawyer indicated that Erenerol supported instigations against Dink and that he was one of the people that had applied to be accepted as joint plaintiffs in the trial against Dink.
Joint attorney İsmail Cem Halavut brought forward a similar argumentation. He drew attention to the case in Malatya and underlined that faculty member Ruhi Abat has developed well-established connections with the local gendarmerie and took action to target missionaries. Halavut requested to acquire the file of the Malatya case.
He stated that Ergenekon defendant Durmuş Ali Özoğlu is mentioned in the indictment in the context of "psychological war" regarding topics such as the "Armenian question". The joint attorneys requested the relevant information, documents and ascertainments concerning Özoğlu to be sent by the Ergenekon trial porsecutors.
Erhan Tuncel's MSN records to be sent from the USA
The lawyers also want to get hold of defendant Erhan Tuncel's written records of the internet messaging software MSN. They requested to contact the USA Consulate in Istanbul in order to obtain the records from the American headquarter of the software company Microsoft. (EÖ/TK/VK)
