ISTANBUL, Turkey - Istanbul's governor released photos Saturday of a man suspected of gunning down a Turkish-Armenian journalist, while seeking to deflect criticism that authorities failed to protect him, despite numerous threats against his life.
Meanwhile, Turkey's prime minister appeared on television at least three times to condemn Hrant Dink's killing and convey his sense of shock.
"The bullets aimed at Hrant Dink were shot into all of us," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. Within hours of Dink's murder, he had sent his interior and justice ministers to Istanbul to lead the investigation.
Dink, the editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian paper Agos, was one of the most influential members of Turkey's beleaguered Armenian community. He stood trial for his views on Turkey's treatment of the minority Armenians and had said he feared he would be attacked.
Dink was shot and killed Friday outside his newspaper's office. No suspects are in custody.
The photos of the suspect showed a man with an angular face and thin mustache, apparently in his late teens or 20s, wearing a white winter hat, jeans and a denim jacket. In one photo, he appeared to be walking calmly; in another he was running and tucking a gun into his waistband.
The images, taken by a security camera on the street where Dink was killed, were enhanced to make it easier to identify the suspect, authorities said. Television stations immediately aired the photos along with the telephone number of a police tip line.
Most Turks assumed the shooting was a reaction to Dink's public statements that the mass killings of Armenians around the time of the First World War constituted genocide. Nationalists see such statements as insults to the honour of Turks and as threats to national unity.
Dink wrote in his last newspaper column that he was so worried about attacks that he found himself constantly watching for danger.
"My computer's memory is loaded with sentences full of anger and threats," he wrote on Jan. 10. "I am just like a pigeon. . . . I look around to my left and right, in front and behind me as much as it does."
Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler sought to deflect criticism that authorities did not do enough to protect him. "Because he didn't request protection, he didn't get close protection," Guler said. "Only general security precautions were taken."
Well-known Turkish journalists commonly receive police protection and can be seen travelling around Istanbul with bodyguards. Dink was alone when he was killed.
Turkish media was unanimous in claiming Dink as their own after the slaying, an irony for a man whose life was largely defined by his being labelled a traitor and an enemy to his country.
"Hrant Dink is Turkey," ran the headline in the daily Milliyet.
"The greatest betrayal," Sabah newspaper said of the killing.
Whatever the motivation behind the killing, it made clear that Turkey remains a place where people speak freely at their own peril, despite generations of western-looking liberal reforms and the country's commitment to joining the European Union.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Turkey was the eighth deadliest country in the world for journalist, with 18 killed in the past 15 years for their work. Turkey's Zaman newspaper said 62 journalists have been assassinated in the country's 84-year history.
Dink, 52, was one of dozens of journalists, writers and academics who have gone on trial for expressing their opinions here, most under the infamous article 301 of the penal code, which makes it a crime to insult Turkey, its government or the national character.
In the most famous case, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk faced jail time last year for insulting Turkey by saying Turks had killed a million Armenians. His case was dropped on a technicality.
Much of Turkey's once-sizeable Armenian population was killed or driven out beginning around 1915 in what an increasing number of countries are recognizing as the first genocide of the 20th century.
Turks vehemently deny that their ancestors committed genocide, however, and saying so is tantamount to treason. In the 1970s and 1980s, tensions were further inflamed as dozens of Turkish diplomats were killed by Armenian assassins seeking revenge.
Turkey, which is 99 per cent Muslim, and Armenia, which claims to be the first country to officially adopt Christianity, share a border. The border is closed, and the two countries have no formal diplomatic relations.
