Turkish opposition leader calls Dink widow

PanARMENIAN.Net - Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of Turkey’s opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) made a phone call to Rakel Dink, the widow of Agos Armenian-Turkish weekly slain editor Hrant Dink.

“I know that the court decision doubled your pain,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, quoted by CNNturk.

Kılıçdaroğlu was among those who slammed the court verdict on the murder case.

January 19, marked the 5th anniversary of Dink's assassination.

Dink was shot dead on Jan. 19, 2007 offices of his newspaper in Istanbul in broad daylight by ultranationalist teenager Ogün Samast, who was sentenced to 21 years in prison.

A Turkish court has recently convicted Yasin Hayal, a major suspect in the killing of the Turkish-Armenian journalist, of instigating a murder.

The Istanbul 14th High Criminal Court issued its ruling in the 25th hearing of the case. Tuncel was given 10 years, six months for his role in a McDonalds bombing in 2004. The court, however, acquitted Hayal and several others of charges of acting under a terrorist organization's orders, angering lawyers who say the trial failed to shed light on alleged connections between the suspects and some state officials.

The Dink family's lawyer, Fethiye Cetin, slammed the ruling, saying it meant that a “state tradition of political murders” was deliberately left intact because it did not deal with accusations of state involvement in the 2007 murder.

Turkey’s President and government officials sought to appease uproar over the verdict in the case into Dink’s murder, calling for patience until the judicial process was completed

Dozens of thousands took to the streets to honor Dink’s memory as outrage continues to grow over a trial which failed to shed light on official negligence or even collusion.

Human rights activists placed red carnations on the spot where Dink was gunned down. Many carried black banners that read: "We are all Hrant, we are all Armenian."