Teenager shot editor for insulting Turks - report

ISTANBUL, Jan 21 (Reuters) An unemployed teenager told investigators he shot dead Turkish-Armenian writer Hrant Dink because he had insulted Turks, broadcaster CNN Turk reported today.

The killing has shocked Turkey and raised questions about the country's tolerance for minorities and freedom of expression as it seeks to join the European Union..

Police caught Ogun Samast, 17, carrying a gun at a bus station in the Black Sea coastal town of Samsun yesterday, a day after Dink was shot in broad daylight outside his newspaper office in Istanbul.

''I read on the Internet that he (Dink) said 'I am from Turkey but Turkish blood is dirty' and I decided to kill him ...

I do not regret this,'' CNN Turk quoted Samast as saying.

Dink was a respected but controversial figure who promoted reconciliation between Turks and Armenians but also called on Turkey to recognise its role in massacres of Armenians during World War One.

Turkish nationalists saw such comments as an insult to national honour.

''Those who carried out a campaign against him, those who declared him an enemy of the Turks and pinned him as a target are responsible for his death,'' Turkish Nobel Literature Prize winner Orhan Pamuk was quoted as saying by state Anatolian news agency.

Samsun's chief prosecutor Ahmet Gokcinar confirmed to Anatolian news agency that Samast had confessed.

Samast and six other suspects are being questioned in Istanbul, police said. One suspect, Yasin Hayal, served 11 months in jail for the bombing of a McDonalds restaurant in Trabzon in 2004, Vatan daily said.

Newspapers demanded authorities leave no stone unturned in investigating the latest in a series of politically motivated murders in Turkey.

MODERATE VOICE Dink, 52, was a Christian of Armenian descent and editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos.

He was frequently criticised by nationalist Turks, including politicians and prosecutors, for describing the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as a genocide.

The once-influential Armenian community in Turkey has dwindled to some 60,000 people.

Last year, Turkey upheld a six-month suspended jail sentence against Dink for ''insulting Turkey's identity'' in his writings on Armenians and Turks.

Dozens of intellectuals have been charged with insulting Turkish identity under article 301 of the revised penal code, passed by the current AK Party government.

Most, including Pamuk, were taken to court by nationalist-minded prosecutors for comments related to the alleged genocide of Armenians.

Turkey denies 1.5 million Armenians died in a systematic genocide. It says both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks died in a conflict on Ottoman territory during World War One.

France has made it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide and the US Congress is to debate a similar bill.

The ruling AK Party, which has roots in political Islam, has repeatedly promised to revise the much criticised penal code article. The EU wants Ankara to change the law.

''Those who defended article 301 and those who still want to keep it are responsible for Hrant Dink's death,'' Pamuk said.

The government is likely to face pressure to address freedom of expression and also the country's dark past as presidential and parliamentary elections approach.

''Just wait and see how this will resonate outside,'' wrote columnist Mehmet Ali Birand. ''Newspapers will write about how Turkish people could not tolerate a liberal journalist of Armenian origin. Can there be any greater harm to our country?'' REUTERS MQA BST0120