Engin Dinç, who is currently Ankara Provincial Police Chief, has worked in intelligence units for many years, particularly as the Head of the Department of Intelligence during the Hrant Dink Murder trials. The Court’s opinion on Engin Dinç, who was in the defendant’s chair at the Istanbul 14th Court of Assize, where public officials were on trial in relation to the Dink murder, was as follows:
“Since it has been examined in detail in the “evaluation of the evidence / facts – allegations” section above, and since there is nothing to the contrary of the defenses, and since it has been established that the defendant had no involvement in the acts that were understood to have taken place after he left his duty due to the fact that he was on duty in Afyon province on these dates, he cannot be held responsible for the murder in question…“
Engin Dinç, who was appointed as the head of the Department of Intelligence despite being on trial as a defendant in the case, and who repeatedly submitted reports on the murder to the investigating prosecutor on behalf of the Department he headed, and the role he played in the process deserve to be scrutinized carefully.
His career
Engin Dinç graduated from the Police Academy in 1989 and started working at the Department of Intelligence with the rank of Assistant Lieutenant. After working at the Department of Intelligence for 9 years, he served as Intelligence Branch Chief in Mardin, Trabzon and Afyonkarahisar Provincial Police Departments respectively. On 3 May 2013, he was appointed as the Head of Department of Intelligence; on 25 October 2016, he was appointed as Eskişehir Police Chief; on 7 July 2021, he was appointed as Konya Police Chief. On 2 August 2023, according to the Presidential Appointment Decree published on 2 August 2023, he was appointed as Ankara Provincial Police Chief. He is currently serving as Ankara Police Chief.
Engin Dinç in the Hrant Dink murder trial
On 26 August 2004, he was appointed as a branch chief in Trabzon, where the perpetrators of Hrant Dink’s murder were identified and monitored. Until 21 July 2006, he served as the Trabzon Provincial Police Department Intelligence Branch Chief. In May 2006, when Reşat Altay was appointed as Trabzon Provincial Police Chief replacing Ramazan Akyürek, he did not get along with Altay and was assigned to another unit in Trabzon. On 28 August 2006, he was appointed as Afyonkarahisar Intelligence Branch Chief.
Although he employed Erhan Tuncel as an auxiliary intelligence officer in Trabzon and shared the information he obtained about the attack against Dink with Istanbul, allegations that he did not ensure the arrest of the perpetrators in Trabzon and did not convey the information to the judicial units during his term of office became an issue. On 12 July 2007, he testified to the prosecutor’s office as a witness, on 22 July 2007 to the inspector, on 17 August 2007 to the prosecutor’s office as a witness, on 26 August 2015 to the prosecutor’s office as a suspect and on 10 October 2016 to the court as a defendant. Eventually, he was listed as a defendant in the trial.
When he was Trabzon Intelligence Chief, intelligence was received that Hrant Dink would be killed. On February 17, 2016, the intelligence information obtained was sent to the Istanbul Police Intelligence Branch and the Department of Intelligence. Assessing that the information obtained was important, he personally met with an informant, Erhan Tuncel, and instructed other personnel to pay attention to Tuncel and to meet his material needs. He said that he informed the Istanbul Intelligence Branch both in writing and over the phone that a “sound-making action” would be carried out against Dink. In his statements, he stated that the term ‘sound-making action’ in this letter refers to bombings, killing with a gun and serious actions that would cause outrage in the society.
He stated in his testimony in court that he called Ahmet İlhan Güler, the Chief of Istanbul Intelligence Branch, on his cell phone and said, “Brother, these are a crazy group, there are at least 10 groups that want to kill this man(Dink), if I were you, I would protect this man” and that Ahmet İlhan Güler said in response, “OK brother, we will take care of this”. Regarding the failure to carry out an operation against the Yasin Hayal group who would commit the murder, he said: “The action of the Yasin HAYAL group against Hrant DİNK was at the thought stage, they did not have any actual preparations to carry out the action, they did not have any detected movements such as a reconnaissance or buying weapons, and there were no statements in the intercepted phone calls that they had any preparations in this direction, If any actual preparations had been detected during my term of office (until the end of June 2006), we would have brought this matter to the operation stage and reported it to the Terror Branch’. Although he wrote in the letter he sent to Istanbul that a murder, bombing or an incident that would arouse outrage might take place, and although he told Ahmet İlhan Güler that Dink should be protected, he could not resolve the contradiction in his defense about not initiating judicial proceedings on the matter.
During his term as the head of the Department of Intelligence, Dinç submitted numerous reports to the prosecutor’s office that would affect the course of the investigation. These include an official letter dated 27 May 2015 in which evaluations on the murder were sent to the prosecutor’s office, an official letter dated 9 July 2015 on the C5 bureau allegedly set up ‘illegally’ by Yılmazer and Akyürek, an Information Note dated 11 September 2015 on the investigations conducted in Trabzon, another Information Note dated October 2015 and finally another official letter dated October 2015 on the C5 bureau. As can be easily understood from the content of the official letters and information notes, the information and documents he sent in his capacity as the Head of the Department contain accusations against the other defendants, but also statements that exonerate him.
The court’s rejection of Engin Dinç’s responsibility for the murder of Hrant Dink also raises a number of questions. There are allegations that while Dinç was the Chief of the Intelligence Branch, he was aware of the threats against Dink but failed to take adequate measures and did not effectively share this information with the relevant units (e.g. the judicial police in Trabzon and the provincial director Reşat Altay). The court’s denial of responsibility on the basis of Dinç’s post in Afyon after this period and his disconnection from Trabzon Intelligence ignores these important allegations. The court did not expect Dinç to use intelligence information more proactively and take more effective measures against potential threats. However, the court was not so objective (!) about the other defendants who were convicted.
It should also be emphasized that the allegations against Dinç are not only related to the murder of Hrant Dink. For example, it was revealed in the Civil Administration Inspectors’ report that the intelligence report on the October 10 Ankara Station Massacre by ISIS, which was obtained on 8 October 2015, was sent to the Anti-Terror Branch on the morning of 10 October 2015 by Dinç, the then Head of the Department of Intelligence. This led to reactions that Dinç was once again “hiding intelligence” after Dink’s murder. Again, when he was the Provincial Police Chief of Konya, Engin Dinç’s name came to the forefront once again after a Kurdish family of 7 was killed in a racist attack in Meram District.
In the most naïve terms, the Court accepted the information sent by Engin Dinç to the case file about the other defendants and his own statements as true, while rejecting the defenses of the other defendants on the grounds that they were intended to avoid guilt. This clearly shows that there is a judicial privilege for Dinç. When this belief and trust in Dinç’s statements is compared to the suspicion and rejection of the other defendants’ defenses, it becomes clear that a double standard is being applied in the trial process.