LET THE COVER-UP BEGIN

"The 'deep state' is made up of elements from the military, security and judicial establishments wedded to a fiercely nationalist, statist ideology who, if need be, are ready to block or even oust a government that does not share their vision."
~ Gareth Jones, reporting for Reuters on TDN.

Trabzon . . . The shooter was from Trabzon; why am I not surprised? Trabzon, the spawning ground of the MHP and its assassins, the Gray Wolves.

IHT reports that Ogun Samast, the shooter, is seventeen and from Trabzon. "Described as a quiet but courageous boy by his uncle," yet he dropped out of high school and was kicked out of a soccer club due to "undisciplined behavior." Described as "totally open to manipulation," by one of the soccer officials.

They also say "he couldn't have done this alone," that "[s]ome people must have exploited him," and

Kazim Kolcuoglu, head of the Istanbul Bar Association, said that young people are sometimes used as assassins because they face lower penalties than adults convicted of the same crime.

Exactly. In addition, ordinary criminals are routinely granted a general amnesty, something that never applies to political prisoners. More from IHT on another suspect:

One of the suspects, Yasin Hayal, an alleged Islamic militant who learned to make bombs from Chechen militants at a camp in Azerbaijan and who served 11 months in jail for the bombing of a McDonalds restaurant in Trabzon in 2004, is suspected of masterminding the attacks on both Dink and Father Santaro.

Did you get it? A Turkish Islamist bombs a McDonalds in Turkey and only gets 11 months in jail. What happened to Turkey's noble war on terror? Ask yourself why an Islamist who bombs a McDonalds only gets 11 months in jail.

Does anyone remember that Alparslan Aslan, the shooter in the Council of State attack last May, was also an Islamist with ties to ultra-nationalists? From DozaMe:

The Atabeyler gang’s existence — believed to be an ‘open secret’ in the corridors of Ankara — was unearthed by the Turkish AKP administration after an attack on the Turkish Council of State on May 17, 2006. The Turkish judge Mustafa Yücel Özbilgin of the Second Chamber was killed and four other judges were wounded. The assailant, Alparslan Aslan, a lawyer with Islamic fundamentalist and Turkish ultra-nationalist sympathies, was arrested for the murder.

Alparslan Aslan’s interrogation led to the arrest of several retired and serving military service men and police officers. The operation was named as “Atabeyler Operation” but satisfying results could not be obtained due to interference by the higher Turkish military echelon who claimed most of the suspects as “their own.” A reference in Turkey enough to make anybody an ‘untouchable’.

Alparslan Aslan is an Islamist and an ultra-nationalist. He reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar" before murdering a judge, and he claimed to have no connections to any organizations. Yasin Hayal is an Islamist, and since he's affiliated with Chechen militants, he's most likely a Turkish ultra-nationalist as well. Here's a history lesson on that, from CNN:

Today the most active group aiding the Chechens is a branch of the Gray Wolves movement called Nizami Alem, or "universal order." Nizami Alem is an ultra-nationalist group created from a split in the official Gray Wolves political party, known by its initials MHP.

Nizami Alem accuses the Gray Wolves of not being sensitive enough to Islamic thought. For its part, Nizami Alem maintains strong ties to the more radical Muslim groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

The Turkish allies of the Chechens have a party known as the BBP (or Party of Great Unity). Positioned on the extreme right of the Turkish political spectrum, the party is enjoying considerable success.

You can get an idea of some of BBP's stupidity and one of the axes they have to grind with AKP, here. They also didn't like the idea of the Pope's visit, from Genocide Watch:

A group of Turkish ultra-nationalists protested anew against Pope Benedict XVI's planned visit to the country next week. The group also occupied Hagia Sophia . . .

[ . . . ]

The group of protestors belonged to the Great Unity Party (BBP), an ultra-nationalist political formation in current Turkey, a mixture of extreme nationalist thought intermingled with Islam. It was led by Kemal Kerincsiz, an ultra-nationalist lawyer who has won notoriety for launching multiple court cases against Turkish intellectuals, contesting the official line on the extermination of Turkey's Christian minorities of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians under Ottoman rule, which Ankara ostensibly rejects as genocide, or condemning human rights abuses against Kurdish nationals.

Maybe they should haul Kemal Kerincsiz in for questioning.

Nizam-i Alem is mentioned in the IHT article about Hrant Dink's murderer, Ogun Samast, but it is much more likely that Yasin Hayal is affiliated with Nizam-i Alem because he has the Chechen connections. CNN also conducted an interview with an Islamist who had been a former fighter in Chechnya. At the time of the interview, he was living in Istanbul:

Suddenly, after seeing those images of the war [in Chechnya], I decided to go to Chechnya as a volunteer. The next day I talked about it with a Turkish friend of mine, a former Gray Wolf. He belongs to the ultra-nationalist branch of that movement, known as Nizami Alem, or "Universal Order." I put myself in their hands.

Do you know about the myth of the gray wolf? It is the heroic wolf that shows the Turkish people the road out of Asia, leading them to their new homeland, Europe. In the same way we will lead the Caucasian people to freedom. A few days after my encounter with the Nizami Alem nationalists, they took me to a training camp here in Turkey, where they taught us to use weapons. Then I went to the front.

[ . . . ]

What I do know is that there were many ex-military men among them from the Turkish armed forces, who are close to the Nationalist movement, and maybe one or two agents from the Turkish secret service.

Yeah, "maybe one or two agents" from the Turkish government were involved with Nizam-i Alem, and their purpose was to keep the group's operations under control in Turkey, not to forbid it from operating. They thought they could keep Turkish Hezbollah under control, too, and where did that get them? Notice, in the complete interview, what the mujahedin said about who's running heroin and how well he digested the Turkish ultra-nationalist propaganda on the Kurdish struggle.

Nizam-i Alem, Atabeyler, MHP, Gray Wolves, ex-Turkish military . . . these are the threads of the Deep State. Whoever is pulling these threads is the one who ordered Hrant Dink's murder. Given the way political murders have always been handled in Turkey, we are not likely to learn who the puppet masters are. This is normal. Anyone remember Yesil?

In this case, for the murder of Hrant Dink, they have set the stage well. They have acquired a willing participant who is underage. He's a virgin, as far as his political affiliations go, meaning that he's clean; he isn't directly linked to the ultra-nationalist groups mentioned here. He had been taken by his handlers--Yasin Hayal?-- to Istanbul five times in the last fifteen days and was paid a sum of money by them. He does not change his clothes after committing the murder and confesses immediately. He knew he was meant to be the fall guy. I bet the police won't even bother to torture him.

He'll spend a couple of years in jail and then go free. Yasin Hayal and his other accomplices may do a few more years, and then they'll be free, too.

And so it always goes.