Ali Öz, the gendarmerie commander of Trabzon, Turkey, who is arrested along the lines of the case into the murder of Istanbul Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, stated that although he had learned about the planned assassination six months before the murder, he had not attached importance to this information. 

The indictment against the gendarmerie soldiers, who are accused of complicity in this murder, have been attached to the main trial into this assassination, according to Cumhuriyet (Republic) daily of Turkey. As a result, the number of defendants in this case has reached 86.

“I learned the name of Dink after the killing,” Öz claimed during the interrogation. “Before that, I knew neither his name, nor his newspaper [Agos Armenian bilingual weekly of Istanbul], neither his home, neither his press organization. “Had I given it importance, I would have done everything.” 

Hrant Dink, the founder and chief editor of Agos, was gunned down on January 19, 2007, outside the then office of this newspaper.

In 2011, the perpetrator, Ogün Samast, was sentenced by a juvenile court to 22 years and ten months for the murder. 

After long court proceedings and appeals, however, a new probe was ultimately launched in this murder case, and regarding numerous former and serving senior Turkish officials’ complicity in this assassination.