Tens of thousands of people have marched through the Turkish city of Istanbul on the fifth anniversary of the murder of the ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. The demonstrators expressed anger at a court
verdict
this week which jailed three people in connection with the murder but said that there was no evidence of a wider plot. This report from Jonathan Head in Istanbul.
There haven't been these sorts of numbers on the streets of central Istanbul since Hrant Dink's funeral five years ago. Police estimates put the crowd at 40,000, brought out in a wave of indignation over Tuesday's court verdict. Hrant Dink's murder shocked the country because when it happened many Turks believed the era of political killings was behind them. During the investigation, plenty of evidence was
unearthed
that pointed to police involvement in the killing, and yet these leads were not followed up by prosecutors despite
pleas
to do so from Hrant Dink's family.
Syria's state news agency has confirmed that an army general has been shot dead in the town of Hama. Opposition activists said that the security forces killed at least nine people across Syria on Thursday. The military has pulled back troops from a town on the border with Lebanon after several days of clashes. The month-long mandate for an Arab League observer mission is due to expire today. Anti-government demonstrators in the Syrian town of Deraa told the BBC correspondent that they expected to be attacked. This is the latest World News from the BBC here in London.