Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Saturday that Ogun Samast, the suspected killer of Turkish-Armenian editor and writer Hrant Dink, was arrested.

Erdogan was quoted by the semi-official Anatolia news agency as saying that Samast was arrested in the northern province of Samsun earlier in the day.

The suspect's father went to Trabzon police department after he saw photos of his son on TV channels and informed police of the identity of his son, Anatolia said.

Meanwhile, police were taking testimonies from five people, including the suspect's father, Ahmet Samast, and his wife.

It was reported that Ogun Samast had left his home three days ago, saying he would go to Istanbul.

Hrant Dink, a 53-year-old Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, was shot dead by an unidentified assailant in front of his office building in Sisli district on the European side of Istanbul on Friday.

Dink had been convicted of insulting Turkey's identity over his comments on the alleged Armenian genocide by Ottoman Turks during World War I and received a six-month suspended sentence. He had received threat from nationalists who considered him as a traitor, local media reported.

Turkey has denied that up to 1.5 million Armenians died as a result of systematic genocide during the Turkish Ottoman period between 1915 and 1923.

However, it does acknowledge that up to 300,000 Armenians and an even higher number of Muslims died in fighting and efforts to relocate populations away from the war zone in eastern Turkey.

Source: Xinhua