A leading Turkish-Armenian editor who was convicted of insulting Turkey's identity was shot dead outside his newspaper office in Istanbul today.
Hrant Dink, a controversial journalist and a frequent target of nationalist anger, was shot by an assailant as he left his newspaper Agosin central Istanbul, a colleague said.
The body of Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink lies on the ground outside his newspaper office in Istanbul today
Turkish broadcaster NTV said he had been shot three times in the neck and that police were looking for a 18- or 19-year-old man.
The attack is bound to raise political tensions in Turkey, where politicians of all parties have been courting the nationalist vote ahead of presidential elections in May and parliamentary polls due by November.
Protesters at the scene chanted "the murderer government will pay" and "shoulder-to-shoulder against fascism".
Television footage showed Mr Dink's body lying in the street covered by a white sheet, with hundreds of bystanders gathering behind a police cordon.
Last year Turkey's appeals court upheld a six-month suspended jail sentence against Dink, a Turkish-born Armenian, after he wrote about the Armenian "genocide" of 1915.
The ruling was sharply criticised by the European Union, which Turkey wants to join.