Protests during Hrant Dink’s murder trial. (Source: Agos)

ISTANBUL (Agos) — It has been revealed that the Trabzon gendarmerie intelligence office had been watching Hrant Dink around his home for 4 months before he was assassinated.

Yasin Hayal’s relative Coskun Igci informed Trabzon gendarmerie intelligence office about the Dink murder in the summer of 2006. Hayal is the Turkish criminal who is serving a life sentence for inciting the individual who murdered Dink.

According to Selahattin Gunday’s report in Al Jazeera, it was also confirmed that 4 officials from the gendarmerie intelligence office came to Istanbul on August 2006.

Cellphone records of the officials from the intelligence office were examined and it showed that their phones were signaling from IIstasyon Cad. Odak İş Hanı No:l Bakırköy between August 8 and 11.

After that, Dink’s cellphone records were also examined and this examination revealed that his phone was also signaling from the same address at the same time. This address is close to Dink family’s permanent address.

In 2008, a lawsuit was filed against 3 of those officials due to neglect of duty. However, the fact that they had been following Dink in Istanbul wasn’t added to that lawsuit.

This information about the gendarmerie isn’t in the indictment prepared by prosecutor Gokalp Kokcu. This information also wasn’t included in the lawsuit that was filed against police chiefs like Faruk Sarı, Ahmet İlhan Guler, Engin Dinc, Ali Fuat Yılmazer, Sabri Uzun and Ramazan Akyurek.

On October 15, 2015, the information about the gendarmerie was separated from the lawsuit against police chiefs. This doesn’t mean that they are excluded from the investigation, but that the gendarmerie wasn’t in the indictment.