Turkish police announced on Sunday that A.I., a fugitive suspect in the 2007 murder of Armenian Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, was brought to Turkey on Saturday after being detained in Kyrgyzstan.
A.I. was convicted in a trial over the shooting death of Dink in Istanbul and was sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison. He was accused of helping convicted murderer O.S. by hiding the weapon used in the murder and lending money to the murderer as well as his own cellphone.
Turkish counterterrorism police and police intelligence had discovered that A.I. was hiding in Bishkek and contacted Kyrgyz authorities. The suspect was caught by Kyrgyz security forces in February. When he was caught, he was carrying a passport belonging to his brother, with his own photo glued on the photo ID instead.
The police said the suspect was handed over to the authorities of Metris prison in Istanbul to serve his sentence.
A.I. was sentenced by an Istanbul court in 2012 on charges of "aiding and abetting premeditated murder." His sentence was upheld by an appeals court in 2013. In another trial on Dink’s murder, he was sentenced to one year, 10 months and 15 days in prison for membership of a terrorist group in 2019, but it was discovered that he already fled abroad.
Dink was editor-in-chief of Agos newspaper when he was shot dead by teenager O.S. in broad daylight, a murder which stirred up a public outrage and triggered unprecedented protests. An outspoken critic, as well as supporter of a rapprochment between Turkey and Armenia, Dink was allegedly killed over his stance by the teenager who had identified himself as a nationalist.
O.S., who was captured as he was returning to his hometown in northern Turkey from Istanbul where he shot Dink dead outside the offices of Agos, was sentenced to 22 years and 10 months in prison, but the trial and investigation took another turn when a prosecutor, now wanted on charges of membership of Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), said in his indictment that Ergenekon, "a terrorist group," was behind the murder. Ergenekon was the name of a network of individuals described as a terrorist group by prosecutors, police chiefs and judges who orchestrated trials against them. Years later, it was discovered that Ergenekon was an organization concocted by FETÖ’s infiltrators in the judiciary and law enforcement to imprison people the terrorist group targeted using trumped-up charges and forged evidence.
Though O.S. was sentenced, the trial and a parallel investigation into his links continued for years, an unusually protracted period of time and ambiguity that is now blamed on FETÖ’s role in the investigation. When the terrorist group was designated as a security threat in late 2013 after two coup attempts and its infiltrators in the judiciary were suspended and detained, the course of the investigation changed yet again.
In 2014, a court paved the way for the indictment of public officials over their role in the murder. Former police chiefs, who were arrested for their FETÖ links, were also tried in this new case of Dink’s murder. A new indictment included FETÖ leader Fetullah Gülen, prosecutors and journalists linked to the terrorist group in the case. Prosecutors stated that the murder was the first violent act of FETÖ in its bid to seize power in Turkey. Gülen and others had apparently aimed to imprison their critics or those blocking their infiltration into law enforcement, judiciary and army by linking them to the murder, under the guise of the "Ergenekon" probes. Last year, six FETÖ-linked suspects, including former police chiefs, were sentenced for a coverup of the murder while a trial is underway for fugitive suspects including Fetullah Gülen.