The media are still pushing the “Turkish nationalist” angle in the assassination of Armenian editor Hrant Dink, as if “Turkish nationalism” were completely unconnected to its Islamic roots: Teen ‘shot editor for insulting Turks’.

AN unemployed teenager has told investigators he shot dead editor Hrant Dink because he had insulted Turks, it was reported today.

Police caught Ogun Samast, 17, carrying a gun at a bus station in the Black Sea coastal town of Samsun overnight, a day after the Turkish-Armenian Dink was shot in broad daylight outside his newspaper office in Istanbul.

“I read on the Internet that he (Dink) said ‘I am from Turkey but Turkish blood is dirty’ and I decided to kill him … I do not regret this,” CNN Turk quoted Samast as saying.

Why do I have this sneaking suspicion that Samast’s statements are not being fully reported?

As we noted yesterday, initial stories about the shooting included a quote from an eyewitness who said Samast had shouted, “I shot the infidel!” Reuters themselves had this quote, but it was edited out of later versions.

Here’s an interesting little experiment with Google News, which indexes many of the world’s media outlets (legitimate, illegitimate, and insane).

A search for the murdered editor’s name returns more than 1,300 results: hrant dink - Google News.

But a search for “I shot the non-Muslim” (as Reuters originally reported it) returns only 21 results, all early reports in Australian or other non-US sources: 'i shot the non-muslim' - Google News.

And a search for “I shot the infidel” returns … 2 results, both to the same article at the Telegraph: 'i shot the infidel' - Google News.

Note that I’m not claiming the shooting was strictly for purposes of jihad. Samast obviously was motivated to some extent by Dink’s remarks criticizing Turkey for the Armenian jihad/genocide.

But on the other hand, there seems to be a universal agreement among the wire services and major US newspapers to ignore the eyewitness’s quote—even editing it out of later versions of the same article.

It’s a whitewash.

And here’s another early version of the Reuters report, with the quote, still posted at their Canadian web site: Turkish-Armenian editor shot dead in Istanbul.

NTV television said Dink, a Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, had been shot three times in the head and neck.

Muharrem Gozutok, owner of a restaurant near the Agos office, said the assailant looked about 20, wore jeans and a cap and shouted “I shot the non-Muslim” as he left the scene.

If the quote was mis-reported, the context is important enough that I’d expect articles to contain something like this: “Early reports that the attacker shouted ‘I shot the non-Muslim’ were unverified.”

Instead, the quote simply vanished.

UPDATE at 1/21/07 10:51:21 am:

Support for the jihad angle, from a Turkish web site: Police identify suspected killer of Turkish journalist. (Hat tip: Abu Maven.)

Police have identified the suspected killer of journalist Hrant Dink, acting on a tip from the suspect’s father, private NTV television reported Saturday. A police official speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed that police were seeking a man by the name of Ogun Samas, but would not give further information.

Samas was reportedly from the Black Sea city of Trabzon. A photograph, allegedly of Samas holding a gun while running away from Dink after the attack Friday, had been released to the public. Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler said Dink’s secretary also had identified the man in the photograph as the same man who had entered the newspaper’s office and requested a meeting with Dink around noon on the day he was killed.

The suspect allegedly said he was a student at Ankara University. NTV reported that the suspect’s father and 10 other people were detained by police in Trabzon.

It said Samas was friends with Yasin Hayal, a young man charged in 2004 with bombing a McDonald’s restaurant in Trabzon. Hayal was alleged to be an Islamic militant and said he learned to make bombs from Chechen militants at a camp in Azerbaijan. The bomb injured six passers-by and was apparently an attack aimed at punishing the United States.

And in today’s New York Times, more evidence of jihad (although the Times doesn’t connect the dots): Turkish Police Arrest Teenage Suspect in Editor’s Killing.

The police are also looking into possible links between Mr. Samast and the killing of a Catholic priest, Andrea Santaro, last February. The assailant was a 16-year-old who, like the priest and Mr. Samast, was from Trabzon.

(Father Andrea Santaro was murdered during the height of the Danish cartoon madness, and his killer shouted “Allahu Akbar!”)

UPDATE at 1/21/07 10:57:35 am:

At AFP, an article (in which the I word and the M word do not appear) indirectly acknowledges Samast is a Muslim: Turkish teenager confesses to killing journalist.

“I shot him after saying the Friday prayers. I’m not sorry,” the CNN Turk news channel quoted him as saying in his testimony.