Turkey’s Council of State (Danıştay — the highest administrative court) has upheld the decision of Istanbul’s 6th Administrative Court granting the 1.5 million lira (approximately 168,000 dollars) compensation claim of the wife of former “Agos” editor Hrant Dink, Rakel Dink, and their children, Sera, Delal and Arat Dink. This was reported by Ermenihaber.am, citing sabah.com.tr.
The Council of State thus did not uphold the appeal of Turkey’s Ministry of the Interior, and accepted the Dink family’s assertion that the Ministry bore serious official negligence and objective liability in the murder of the family’s father, Istanbul-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.
It should be noted that the Dink family had filed a lawsuit against Turkey’s Ministry of the Interior before Istanbul’s 6th Administrative Court. They had argued that the Ministry had been negligent in the murder of Hrant Dink. The Dink family had demanded 1.5 million Turkish lira in compensation, of which 500,000 was for material and 1 million for moral damages. The court had unanimously granted the claim, but the Ministry of the Interior had appealed the court’s ruling.
