Dink case judge says unsatisfied with court ruling

PanARMENIAN.Net - Amidst wide public criticism of a Turkish court's recent ruling that ruled out involvement of an organized criminal network in the 2007 killing of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, the court's presiding judge has said he is personally not satisfied with the verdict either, Today’s Zaman reports.

The presiding judge of the Istanbul 14th High Criminal Court, Rüstem Eryılmaz, spoke with the Vatan daily on Thursday, Jan 19, and responded to criticism of the court's Tuesday ruling in the five-year-long Dink murder case. He said while he personally cannot deny the murder was well-organized, the evidence submitted to the court was not sufficient to issue such a ruling.

“According to the evidence, there is no [illegal] organization [involved in the murder]. But we cannot say there is no organization involved in the case,” Eyılmaz said.

In what many said was a shocking and frustrating ruling for the five-year-long trial in the Dink case, the Istanbul court cleared all suspects in the case of membership in a terrorist organization, angering lawyers and many others who say the trial failed to shed light on alleged connections between the suspects and state officials.

The court convicted Yasin Hayal, a major suspect in the Dink killing, of instigating a murder and sentenced him to life in prison, while another suspected instigator, Erhan Tuncel, was acquitted by the court. “We acquitted the suspects of organized crime charges. This ruling does not mean that there was no organization involved. This means that there was not enough evidence to prove the actions of this organization,” the embattled judge said.

Noting that he and other judges of the court also think the Dink murder was not an ordinary one, he said there certainly is someone who instigated the murder, but they had no evidence to prove that.

Sharing his personal views about the case, Eryılmaz added that he believes that the killing of Dink was not simply an idea thought up by Hayal. “There must be some instigators. This is my personal view. But in order to accept this situation as legal fact, there should be evidence. Since expectations were high in this case, this ruling pleased nobody. If you ask me whether I was personally satisfied, I would say no since I believe there are more instigators. But this is the best ruling that can be issued in accordance with the evidence in the case file,” he said.

Today, Jan 19, marks the 5th anniversary of the assassination.