Turkish cops give the “hero treatment” to murderer who shouted “I shot the infidel” after killing Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. Tiny Minority of Extremists and Let Them Into The EU Alerts from The Guardian, with thanks to all who sent this in:
Outrage at the murder of the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink deepened yesterday after the media showed images of the teenage murder suspect posing with the Turkish flag and security officials after his arrest.
The government launched an inquiry into the footage, which newspapers denounced as “hero treatment” of the 17-year-old suspect.
Ogun Samast confessed to the January 19 killing of Dink, a 52-year-old journalist who had angered Turkish nationalists with assertions that the mass killings of Armenians around the time of the first world war amounted to genocide.
The images showed Mr Samast holding a Turkish flag and posing with officers, some in uniform, shortly after his arrest on January 21. Behind him a poster carries the words of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey: “The nation’s land is sacred. It cannot be left to fate.”
The Turkish media was outraged. “Shoulder to shoulder with the triggerman: suspected killer Samast was given the hero treatment,” the Sabah daily reported on its front page.