A Turk convicted of aiding and abetting the murder of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink has begun serving his prison sentence after years on the run. Ahmet Iskender was found guilty by an Istanbul court in 2012 of helping the ultranationalist Ogün Samast, who was convicted of the murder of Armenian paper Agos editor-in-chief Hrant Dink. Iskender received twelve and a half years in prison because he disposed of the murder weapon, gave the assassin money and provided him with his telephone. This sentence was confirmed by the Turkish Court of Cassation in 2013. In 2019, he was given another two years in prison for membership of an armed terrorist organization.

However, Ahmet Iskender, who was arrested together with the assassin and three other accomplices a few days after the murder of Hrant Dink on January 24, 2007, had already absconded abroad shortly after his release from custody in July of the same year. In 2015, it emerged that he was staying in Belgium. In early March, the Kyrgyz Interior Ministry then announced that it had apprehended Ahmet Iskender in the capital Bishkek on February 26. The 38-year-old used a forged identity card and driver's license to identify himself and was subsequently arrested for illegal possession of weapons, organized crime and document forgery.

According to the central authority of the Turkish police, it was their department, in cooperation with the international police organization Interpol, that was able to determine that Ahmet Iskender was living in the Central Asian state with a false identity. On Saturday, the man was finally handed over to Turkish authorities and flown out of Kyrgyzstan to Turkey. After landing in Istanbul, he was transferred to a local court, where the verdict against him was read out. In the meantime, Iskender is being held in Metris Type T Prison. The prison complex is located in the Esenler district on the European side of the Bosporus metropolis.

Hrant Dink

The Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was shot dead in the street outside the building of the weekly newspaper Agos in Istanbul on January 19, 2007. For years, he had been persecuted by nationalist forces in society and the judiciary for describing the genocide of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire as such. Even shortly before his death, he was subjected to hostility from ultranationalist circles and judicial persecution - for "insulting Turkishness." Dink fought for the rights of minorities and for reconciliation between Armenians and Turks, for democracy, freedom and social debate about the genocide of 1915. To this day, the Turkish government categorically rejects this classification.