In Turkey, nationalist Ogun Samast, who was found guilty of murdering the editor-in-chief of the Armenian newspaper Agos Hrant Dink, was released on parole from a colony. This was reported by the DHA publication.
The decision to release Samast on parole was made in February 2022. The Turkish Ministry of Justice noted that the convict received this right because of his “good behavior.”
Human rights activist and editor-in-chief of the Armenian newspaper Agos published in Istanbul, Hrant Dink, was killed on January 19, 2007 on the threshold of the publication’s office. The next day, January 20, 17-year-old Turkish nationalist Ogun Samast was detained in Samsun. His own father identified him from surveillance video and reported him to the police.
The trial of Samast lasted four years. In July 2011, the young man was sentenced to 22 years and 10 months in prison for murder and illegal possession of weapons. The court also found Samast's two friends, Erhan Tuncel and Yasin Hayal, to be the instigators of the murders. The first was sentenced to 99 years and 6 months in prison, the second — 16 years in prison.
Hrant Dink was one of the leaders of the Armenian community in Turkey. In his publications and speeches, he consistently promoted the idea of recognition by the country's authorities of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire. For this, a criminal case was opened against him “for insulting the Turkish nation” (Article 301 of the Turkish Criminal Code), the prosecution for which, after the death of the journalist, in 2010, the ECHR declared illegal.