A Turkish court has sentenced an ultranationalist to almost 23 years in prison for the assassination of an ethnic Armenian journalist more than four years ago.

In Monday's ruling, the juvenile court in Istanbul convicted 21-year-old Ogun Samast of murder and illegal firearm possession for shooting Hrant Dink outside his office in January 2007. Authorities prosecuted Samast as a minor because he was 17 at the time of the attack. The court sentenced him to 22 years and 10 months in jail.

Dink was the chief editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly newspaper Agos when he was assassinated. He had angered Turkish nationalists by describing the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in the early 20th century as a “genocide.”

Turkey rejects the term and says the collapse of the Ottoman Empire triggered unrest that killed large numbers of Turks as well as Armenians.

Turkish authorities have prosecuted dozens of people in connection with Dink's assassination, including security personnel accused of ignoring intelligence of ultranationalist plots to kill the journalist.

Dink family lawyer Fethiye Cetin welcomed Monday's sentencing, telling the Reuters news agency that it will act as an important deterrent to such crimes.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled last year that Turkish authorities should pay Dink's family $170,000 in compensation for failing to protect him from the death threats.