Eight suspects arrested in murder case of Turkish-Armenian journalist Dink

Eight suspects, including police and journalists, were arrested on March 28 on charges related to the murder of prominent Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, state-run Anadolu Agency has reported.       
Dink, the founder of the bilingual Armenian-Turkish weekly newspaper Agos, was shot dead in an Istanbul street on Jan. 19, 2007.

Although Ogün Samast has been convicted of pulling the trigger, the case has been re-investigated several times amid allegations that police conspired to permit Dink's killing to occur.      

The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office issued warrants on March 21 for the detention of eight people in the ongoing investigation for publishing provocative photos with the convicted murderer after the 2007 killing.

Police detained journalist Muammer Ay and Murat Bayrak, Yüksel Avan, Birol Ustaoğlu, Yakup Kurtaran and Ahmet Çetiner in simultaneous operations conducted in six provinces.

The eight were sought for publishing images and footage of Samast in front of a Turkish flag shortly after his apprehension in the Black Sea province of Samsun.

Prosecutor Gökalp Kökçü from the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office's Terror and Organized Crime Bureau issued warrants for the footage published on Jan. 20, 2017, which shows Samast in front of a saying by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey.

"The homeland is holy, it can't be left to its destiny," reads the saying by Atatürk. 

The prosecutor initially linked Dink's murder case to the Ergenekon case, which was later dropped. A number of judges and prosecutors who pursued the Ergenekon case have subsequently been investigated due to alleged links to U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, who is widely...