A Turkish court has ruled to drop a case in which Ogün Samast, the convicted murderer of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, is accused of committing crimes on behalf of an armed terrorist organization.
Samast, who was facing a prison sentence ranging from seven to 12 years on charges that he “committed crimes on behalf of an armed terrorist organization,” attended the latest hearing of the trial at the İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court on Friday via the IT Voice and Image System (SEGBİS) from a courthouse in his hometown of Trabzon.
The court dropped the charges against Samast due to the statute of limitations, in line with the prosecutor’s demand.
The 52-year-old Dink, editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian bilingual Agos weekly, was shot dead with two bullets to the head outside the newspaper’s headquarters in central İstanbul on January 19, 2007 by Samast, then a 17-year-old jobless high school dropout.
Samast was arrested the following day.
After serving almost 17 years, Samast was released from prison in western Bolu province on November 15, 2023, which led to outrage among opposition politicians, journalists, human rights activists and social media users.
Days after Samast’s release, the İstanbul 2nd Juvenile Court accepted a new indictment against him, merging his case with another ongoing trial at the İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court. This trial involves 11 suspects, including Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel, for their alleged involvement in the crime Samast is accused of committing.
The İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court ruled in 2021 that Dink’s murder was committed “in line with the objectives of FETÖ” — a derogatory term used by the Turkish government to refer to the faith-based movement inspired by the late Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen as a terrorist organization.
For years prosecutors have looked into alleged links between the suspects and Gülen, who was accused of masterminding a failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2016, although he strongly denied the charges.
The Turkish government’s ongoing crackdown on the Gülen movement was launched following corruption investigations in late 2013 that implicated then-prime minister and now-president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s close circle and intensified in the aftermath of the failed coup on July 15, 2016.