Turkish teen arrested in journalist's slaying

Turkish police have arrested ateen suspected in the slaying of an ethnic Armenian journalist after the suspect's fathersaw his image broadcast on television and tipped investigators.

The suspect, identified as Ogun Samast,was caught on a bus in the Black Sea city of Samsun on Saturday, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said.

The "suspected murderer of Hrant Dink, Ogun Samast, was caught in Samsun," Erdogan told a news conference.

Dink, the 52-year-old editor of the Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, was gunned down Friday outside his newspaper's office in Istanbul. Most Turks assume he was targeted for his columns saying the killing of anestimated 1.5 million ethnic Armenians by Turks in the early 20th century was genocide.

Nationalists consider such statements an insult to Turkey's honour and a threat to its unity, and Dink had been showered with insults and threats. Turkish rulers have long insisted that the death count was much lower, and that the deaths were the result of an uprising by Armenian militants, rather thana government eradication campaign.

Earlier, private NTV television reported that the suspect's father and 10 other people had been detained by police for questioning in the Black Sea city of Trabzon.

Accompanied by pleas for the public to help track down the suspect, photographs were broadcast on television showing a thin man in his late teens or early 20s, with an angular face and a wisp of a mustache. One photo captured him running, tucking a pistol into his waistband.

Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler said the man photographed by security cameras was also identified by Dink's secretary, who said he had requested a meeting with Dink the day he was killed, the Anatolia news agency reported. The man said he was a student at Ankara University, Guler said.

The request was refused, and the secretary said she saw him waiting in front of a bank about an hour before Dink was killed, Anatolia reported.

Threats and violence against Turkish editors and reporters is not uncommon, and well-known journalists commonly receive police protection and can be seen travelling around Istanbul with bodyguards. Dink was alone when he was killed.

Vigil held at site of slaying

Istanbul's governor has rejected accusations that the government did not do enough to protect Dink.

"Because he didn't request protection, he didn't get close protection," Guler said Saturday. "Only general security precautions were taken."

Meanwhile, mourners held a vigil at the spot where Dink was gunned down Friday. Many in the crowd, which included Turks and members of Istanbul's small Armenian community, had pictures of the slain journalist pinned to their chests.

"We're here to pay our respects," said Sabri Nas, 47, an Armenian-Turk. "We are against this violence, whatever the motivation."

Turkey's relationship with its Armenian minority has long been haunted by a bloody past. Much of its once-influential Armenian population was killed or driven out during an eight-year campaign that beganaround 1915.

An increasing number of governments, including Canada's,have described the deaths as "genocide." The international campaign to press Turkey to acknowledge what happenednine decades ago comes as the country seeks entry to the European Union.