In the 7th hearing of the murder of Hrant Dink today (October 13), the court refused to give the file about assigning Erhan Tuncel as an assistant intelligence staff to the lawyers of the Dink family on the grounds that it was a “state secret”. Hrant Dink, an Armenian journalist from Turkey and both former chief editor and owner of Agos, an Armenian/Turkish biweekly, was murdered in front of the building where his newspaper was located on January 19, 2007, for which eight people have been on trial. The lawyers of Dink’s family are trying to have four different investigations outside of Istanbul combined with the main case.

Ramazan Akyürek, Director of the Intelligence Bureau of the Police Department, told the court that only 16 pages of the 90 page long classified report could be made accessible, since the rest could have lead to the problems.

Lawyer Fethiye Çetin said that they found out the said file had been sent to the court on April 20, but the lawyers were not informed about it at the hearing on April 28. According to Çetin,  the secret parts of the report should be determined in a meeting with all the lawyers present.

Osman Hayal did not answer the questions concerning his presence in Istanbul

Ogün Samast, the accused killer of Hrant Dink, was not present at the court since he had to be taken to the Kocaeli State Hospital for a psychiatric consultation.

When asked if he was in Istanbul before and after the murder, Yasan Hayal’s brother Osman Hayal said he did not remember.

Previously, Osman Hayal had said he was at Trabzon at the time of the murder. But when it was realized from his telephone signals that he could have been in Istanbul at the time of the murder, he was taken into custody.

Yasin Hayal’s lawyer Fuat Turgut insulted Dink

During the hearing, Yasin Hayal’s lawyer Fuat Turgut reacted in a hostile manner to the demands by the lawyers of Dink’s family that the files for the McDonald’s bombing and the killing of the Priest Santoro be combined with this case and hurled insults at Hrant Dink.

The court warned the lawyer, when slained journalist’s brother Orhan Dink criticized the court for overlooking the lawyer’s behavior. (EÜ/TB)