Five Turks charged in murder of editor

[kach22i]

Five Turks charged in murder of editor
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070125/wl_nm/turkey_author_charges_dc

Thu Jan 25, 8:39 AM ET

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A Turkish prosecutor has said five people were charged in the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, Turkish media reported on Thursday.
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Istanbul's chief prosecutor Aykut Cengiz Engin charged Ogun Samast, a 17-year-old unemployed man from the Black Sea coast, with premeditated murder and membership of an armed group.

Four others were charged with forming an armed organization and incitement to murder.

Samast, who is reported to have been close to an ultranationalist group in his home town Trabzon, has admitted to shooting Dink in daylight as he left his newspaper Agos in Istanbul last Friday.

The murder brought 100,000 mourners to Istanbul's streets for Dink's funeral on Tuesday and has reignited debate about hardline nationalism in a country seeking
European Union membership.

"From the quality and the nature of the crimes attributed to the suspects it is clear the result emerges that they formed an armed group," Engin told reporters late on Wednesday in comments reported by the NTV Web site.

Engin said the fact that the suspects were remanded in custody did not mean that a case would be opened soon. Prosecutors will now prepare an indictment against the suspects.

Samast has confessed to killing Dink for "insulting" Turks in his writings and statements on the massacres of Armenians during World War One -- a highly sensitive issue in Turkey.

Yasin Hayal, a known nationalist militant, has admitted to inciting his friend Samast to kill Dink, the police said.

Hayal served 11 months in jail for the 2004 bombing of a McDonald's restaurant in Trabzon.

Dink, who worked for reconciliation between Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks, had been prosecuted for his views on the massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.

He was among intellectuals, including Nobel Literature Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, who have been prosecuted under laws restricting freedom of expression in Turkey.

Turkey denies claims by Armenia and other countries that 1.5 million Armenians died in a systematic genocide at Turkish hands, saying large numbers of both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks perished during the break up of the Ottoman Empire.

The killer blew up a McDonald's when he was 13 or 14?

It's just not this murder why the Turks should not be allowed in the European Union, it's the governments campaign against history and the truth, which speaks volumes about this culture's motives and intent.

Photos of 100,000 people at furneral:
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/wl/011907hrantdink/im:/070123/photos_wl/2007_01_23t081812_283x450_us_turkey_author_funeral ?sp=-1&lsp=6000

[pwd72s]

Damn, I had hoped the killing was done by a nut case working alone. European Union? I'm all for letting Turkey in...the true freedom is through economic freedom.

[kach22i]

Originally posted by pwd72s
Damn, I had hoped the killing was done by a nut case working alone. European Union? I'm all for letting Turkey in...the true freedom is through economic freedom.

Is that working in China?

[ckissick]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by pwd72s
Damn, I had hoped the killing was done by a nut case working alone. European Union? I'm all for letting Turkey in...the true freedom is through economic freedom. [/QUOTE

If Turkey is in the EU, then Turks will have free access to live and work anywhere in the EU. And radical muslims have easy access to Turkey from the Middle East. So Turkey is a bridge between Europe and the ME. Which way will the traffic flow? Prosperity from Europe to the ME, or radical Islam from the ME to Europe?

[pwd72s]

Originally posted by kach22i
Is that working in China?

Incrementally, you betcher donkey!

[pwd72s]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ckissick

Originally posted by pwd72s
Damn, I had hoped the killing was done by a nut case working alone. European Union? I'm all for letting Turkey in...the true freedom is through economic freedom. [/QUOTE

If Turkey is in the EU, then Turks will have free access to live and work anywhere in the EU. And radical muslims have easy access to Turkey from the Middle East. So Turkey is a bridge between Europe and the ME. Which way will the traffic flow? Prosperity from Europe to the ME, or radical Islam from the ME to Europe?

Seems to me that has already happened...terrorists traveling as they will. Keeping Turkey out is akin to locking the barn door after the horses have escaped.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally posted by kach22i
The killer blew up a McDonald's when he was 13 or 14?

Samast, the trigger man, is 17. It doesn't say how old Hayal, the bomber, is. Then again, 13 or 14 year old terrorists are not unusual in that part of the world. What a messed up place.

[ckissick]

Originally posted by pwd72s
Seems to me that has already happened...terrorists traveling as they will. Keeping Turkey out is akin to locking the barn door after the horses have escaped.

That may be so. Turkey's biggest stumbling block is the official government stance that the Armenian massacre never happened. My wife is Armenian, so I know a lot about this. Let's just say it's exactly as if the Germans said the Jewish massacre never happened. And, of course, this issue is what is behind the killing of Dink.

[pwd72s]

Charlie, this I agree with...