In May 2013, the Supreme Court of Appeals overturned a court’s original ruling which dismissed the existence of an organized criminal network in the case.
Speaking in behalf of Dink’s friends, Agos newspaper columnist Karin Karakaşlı told the press that seven years had passed since the murder and through all that time, state institutions have been pointing at each other to acquit themselves in the eyes of the public.
Dink was shot by an ultranationalist teenager, Ogün Samast, on Jan. 19, 2007, in front of the Agos newspaper’s office, where he served as editor-in-chief. In January 2012, a court ruled on life imprisonment for Yasin Hayal on charges of instigating the murder; another suspect, Erhan Tuncel, was acquitted of murder charges.
The lower court, which found no evidence that a terrorist organization was involved in Dink’s assassination, had acquitted the suspects of claims that they had formed a terrorist organization. The court did, however, say they were guilty of forming an illegal and armed organization to commit a crime, prohibited under Article 220 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). However, after the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeals, a retrial started in May.
