Turkish ex-police chiefs convicted over journalist’s murder

Hrant Dink was gunned down in Istanbul in broad daylight outside his Agos newspaper’s office in 2007.

A Turkish court has sentenced two former police chiefs to life terms in prison for their role in the killing of prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink more than 14 years ago, state media reported. The editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos and then Turkey’s best known Armenian voice abroad, Dink was shot dead as he left his Istanbul office in January 2007. After the murder, tens of thousands gathered in central Istanbul to mourn. In 2011, Dink’s assassin Ogun Samast was sentenced to nearly 23 years in prison by a juvenile court. He was 17 when the killing took place. The following January, a man named Yasin Hayal was sentenced to life in jail for instigating the killing.