Turkey’s Deep State

There’s increasing evidence that Hrant Dink’s assassin was not operating alone:

Four policemen have been suspended from duty after posing in front of a Turkish flag with the suspected murderer of an ethnic Armenian journalist. Another four security police have been transferred to other duties after film of the incident was shown on Turkish television, offering further apparent evidence that the killing may have had support from within the security forces.

It shows officials, some in uniform, arm-in-arm with Ogun Samast, who has confessed to the murder of Hrant Dink, the Editor of Agos, a bilingual Armenian-Turkish newspaper.

Mr Dink, 52, was hated by ultra-nationalists for his writings about the mass killing of Armenians on Ottoman soil during the First World War….

Since the murder on January 19, the media have been alleging some degree of involvement from within the state. Even Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister, has questioned whether the killing was the work of Turkey’s “deep state”— shadowy nationalist elements in the security forces willing to act outside the law. He has also acknowledged that exposing the “deep state” was almost impossible.

“This cassette is proof that the murderer and his partners in crime are not alone, and that people who, when necessary, can perform similar acts are spreading throughout the state apparatus — primarily the police and paramilitary organisations,” wrote Ismet Berkan, Editor of Radikal, the liberal daily newspaper….

Despite periodic official attempts to play down the implications, the Dink investigation continues to produce revelations pointing to complicity, or at least tacit support for the murder, from within state ranks.

First the Interior Ministry sacked the police chief and governor of Trabzon, the Black Sea town where Samast lived, for failing to act against what appears to be a hotbed of violent nationalism. Police were criticised for failing to keep tabs on Yasin Hayal, the man who admitted inciting Samast, since he was released from jail after serving a sentence for bombing a McDonald’s restaurant in 2004.

It was then revealed that an ultra-nationalist who had associated with Hayal was a police informer and had exposed plans to kill Mr Dink eleven months previously.