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Thenewanatolian-While the gunman who murdered Hrant Dink was charged yesterday after he signed his confession, Yasin Hayal, who is suspected of encouraging the murder, threatened Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk.
"Orhan Pamuk, be smart, be smart!" Hayal shouted at reporters as he was being brought into an Istanbul courtroom. Hayal, an ex-convict, confessed to inciting the murder and to providing a gun and money to the gunman.
Also yesterday, a mass-circulation daily published a photo of ultranationalist Grand Unity Party (BBP) leader Muhsin Yazicioglu with Erhan Tuncel, the third man allegedly behind the murder, prompting the party to issue a denial.
Ogun Samast, the gunman, said he wasn't aware of the consequences of his act and that only after he followed the developments on TV did he realize the scale of what he had triggered.
The unemployed teenage dropout confessed to shooting Dink, in a four-page statement given to prosecutors. Samast said Hayal told him Dink was a traitor.
Like Dink, Pamuk also stood trial on charges of insulting Turkishness after telling a foreign journal, "We killed 1 million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds and nobody but me dares to speak out."
Pamuk's case was dropped on technicalities, with some describing it as a maneuver by the Justice Ministry in an attempt to avoid further European Union pressure, but at the same time to appease the Turkish public.
Pamuk has reportedly been receiving death threats and in the wake of Dink's killing has been given close protection.
The killing of Dink also turned the spotlights onto the country's youth and a worrying inclination to adopt ultranationalist values without question. Despite the latest statement by Trabzon Governor Huseyin Yavuzdemir, who said the murder was an individual act with no relation to an ideological organization, many think that the gunman and the other youth detained are somehow related to an extreme nationalist group.
The Trabzon governor, who said there is no one still in custody in Trabzon, said police measures cannot heal the wound afflicting Turkish youth.
Mumcu brands killing intl plot
Motherland Party (ANAVATAN) leader Erkan Mumcu, speaking at a delayed party group meeting yesterday, branded the killing a plot to fabricate allegations against the Turkish people.
"Certain circles try to create a Turkish profile of attacking innocent doves," said Mumcu, while also citing a column by Robert Fisk from the Independent who said Dink "made up" the figure 1.5 millions massacred Armenians.
"The plan was to create a fundamentalist Turk image," said the ANAVATAN leader quoting a remark by Dink himself branding Europeans the real reason for the hatred between Turks and Armenians.
He also touched on the negative media coverage of Trabzon and scolded the press and the government. "The violence stemming from unemployment, hopelessness is not unique to Trabzon. No matter how long you shut your ears to the outcries of the needy, the grinding poverty will surely explode."
Targeting the government for what he described as a security failure on part of the state, Mumcu said he too wasn't given protection despite a request.
"They failed to protect Dink and as an excuse they said Dink didn't ask for protection. Who do you protect in Istanbul? They protect relatives of the premier, their friends, the thieves, robbers," said Mumcu.