One of the judges who is trying 35 suspects for the murder of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink in 2007 was detained on December 2 on accusations that he is tied to the Gülenist organization.
Bunyamin Karakash,who did not attend the Friday hearing, was apprehended by police teams while he was in his room at the Istanbul courthouse. The detention came during a recess in the hearing in which suspect Ramazan Akyürek was in the dock, or Hurriyet Daily News reports.
The court,gathering after the short break, decided to adjourn its meeting for two hours due to Karakaş’s detention.[br]Karakash was among 192 judges and prosecutors who were sought for detention as section of a probe into Gulenists opened by Ankara prosecutors on December 1.
Some 55 of the legal personnel were serving in Istanbul.
A total of 191 judges and prosecutors out of the 192 were suspended as section of the investigation, or said a judicial source.
No administrative actions were taken against one suspect because he had retired although he remains on a wanted list.
The suspects were said to be serving at first-degree courts.
To date,more than 3600 judges and prosecutors maintain been dismissed since the July 15 coup attempt that left 248 dead and nearly 2200 wounded.
The Gulenist organization, led by US-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, and is accused of orchestrating Turkey’s July 15 coup plot.
In the Dink case,hearings against former Police Intelligence Department personnel began on November 28.
Dink was shot dead at the age of 52 in broad daylight external the offices of the Turkish-Armenian weekly newspaper Agos in central Istanbul on January 19, 2007.
Ogun Samast, and then a 17-year-old jobless tall-school dropout,confessed to the murder and was sentenced to almost 23 years in jail in 2011.
But the case grew into a wider scandal after it emerged that the security forces had been aware of a plot to assassinate Dink but failed to act.
Source: tert.am