A Turkish criminal sentenced to life imprisonment for planning assassination of Armenian-Turkish chief editor of Agos daily Hrant Dink may be set free in 4 months.

The Istanbul court where the Dink trial was held is rocked by a regular scandal, Agos daily writes. It was revealed that the court has not sent sufficient documents to the Court of Appeals.

Dink family’s lawyer Fethiye Cetin is concerned about the fact that the Court of Appeals will not manage to pass judgment in four months till January 23, 2013. In this case Yasin Hayal who spent six years in jail may be set free. Under Turkish legislation the person must be released after six years in custody unless there is a confirmed judgment.

On January 17, the Turkish court found Yasin Hayal guilty of planning and organizing Hrant Dink’s murder, and sentenced him to life in prison. Erhan Tuncel, on the other hand, was found not guilty of prompting Dink’s murder, and, instead, he was sentenced to 10 years and 6 months for an explosion in a McDonald’s restaurant. But taking into account that Tuncel was already incarcerated for that amount of time, the court ruled his release.

And earlier, Hrant Dink’s actual killer, Ogun Samast, was sentenced to a total of 22 years and 10 months for Dink’s murder and for bearing illegal arms. But Samast was tried at a juvenile court, since he was a minor at the time of the murder.