YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. A decision was made to arrest 9 policemen within the investigation of the murder of Armenian-Turkish journalist, editor-in-chief of Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos Hrant Dink. As “Armenpress” reports, referring to “Anadolu” news agency, the latter include former Istanbul Police Department Intelligence Unit Chief Ahmet İlhan Güler and former head of intelligence department of the technical sector of the General Directorate of Security Yunus Yazar.

Gokalp Kurkcu of Istanbul Prosecutor’s Office made a decision of arresting the policemen for “on charges of assisting murder, forgery and concealing and destroying official documents..”

A Trabzon local, Ogun Samast, who was 17 years of age at the time of the incident, had been jailed for seven years for plotting the murder of Dink and shooting him to death. However, in his most recent testimony Samast gave names of police chiefs that allegedly knew about the plot.

Two police officers, Ozkan Mumcu and Muhittin Zenit, were arrested earlier in January 2015 on charges of neglect of duty and misconduct which led to death of the assassinated journalist.

Mumcu and Zenit were first questioned by Kurkcu on Dec. 26 on suspecion of misconduct and neglect of duty, but were released by the court. However, prosecutor Kurkcu appealed the decision and the İstanbul 5th Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for both suspects.

They were taken into custody on the previously mentioned charges, becoming the first public officials to be arrested in the Dink case.

On January 16, 2012, Istanbul's 14. Heavy Criminal Court reached a verdict with the remaining defendants. The court ruled there was no conspiracy behind the assassination, and stated that the assassination was an ordinary killing. Yasin Hayal was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Two other men were convicted of assisting him and they were each sentenced to 12 years and 6 months in prison. Erhan Tuncel was found not guilty of Dink's murder, but was found guilty of the McDonald's bombing in Trabzon. He was sentenced to 10 years and 6 months for the bombing, and was paroled due to the 5 1/2 years time served. The remaining suspects were all acquitted in the case.