Turkish-Armenians march to remember slain journalist
An estimated 20,000 people have marched in Istanbul to mark five years since the murder of prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, the BBC reported.
Some protesters were angry over verdicts delivered this week in the latest trial of people linked to his killing, according to the newspaper. Three suspects were jailed but allegations were eventually dropped.
Dink’s actual killer, Ogun Samast, was jailed earlier for 22 years.
The journalist had angered Turkish nationalists by describing the mass killing of Armenians a century ago as genocide, and was fatally shot outside the Istanbul offices of his Turkish-Armenian newspaper.
On Tuesday, a judge sentenced one man to life imprisonment for incitement to murder Dink, and two others were given 12 years in prison.
However, all three men, along with 16 other defendants, were acquitted of charges that they were members of the criminal organization link to Dink’s murder.
The prosecutor said he would appeal the judge’s decision, and emphasized there was sufficient evidence to support that murder had premeditated.
Between 1915 and 1923, 1.5 million Armenians died at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey disputes the genocide label, saying the deaths were caused by civil war and other factors.
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-- Katie Landan, Times Community News
Twitter: @katielandan