A Turkish court sentenced two former police chiefs to life imprisonment for their involvement in the murder of prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, Anadolu reported.

Dink was shot dead while leaving the office of the newspaper Agos, of which he was editor, in January 2007.

In 2011, Dink's killer Ogun Samast was sentenced by a juvenile court to nearly 23 years in prison. He was 17 years old at the time of the murder. In January of the following year, Yasin Khayal was sentenced to life in prison for incitement to murder.

Among those convicted by the court on Friday was former police intelligence chief Ali Fuat Yilmazer, who was sentenced to imprisonment without parole. Another police chief, Ramazan Akyurek, was also sentenced to life in prison.

Turkish state media blamed Dink's murder on the movement of Islamic preacher Fetullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of organizing a coup attempt in July 2016.

Various other suspects in the Dink case were sentenced to prison on charges including complicity in murder, membership in a terrorist group - due to ties to the Gulen movement - and forging and destroying documents.

In 2010, the European Court of Human Rights ordered Turkey to pay 100,000 to Dink's family in compensation, saying the authorities had failed to adequately protect Dink even though they knew the ultranationalists were plotting to kill him.