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Today's Zaman, Turkey
March 9 2007
Turkish shooting suspect says his target was Armenian patriarch
A Turkish man accused of firing in the air outside an Armenian church
claimed Wednesday his real target had been Patriarch Mesrob II, the
spiritual leader of the tiny Armenian community, the Anatolia news
agency reported.
"I had prepared it for (Mesrob) Mutafyan II," Volkan Karova shouted
to reporters here as he and fellow suspect Yýlmaz Can Özalp were
being escorted to the prosecutor's office to give their testimony,
the agency reported.
It was not clear whether he had intended to physically attack the
patriarch or scare him. Later Wednesday, a court charged the two men
with "threatening by firing shots" and "carrying an unlicensed gun"
and sent them to jail pending trial, the agency said. The pair were
arrested late Sunday just hours after two men fired a shot in the air
outside a church in the city's Kumkapý district. At the time, a
ceremony was being held for slain ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant
Dink.
March 9 2007
Turkish shooting suspect says his target was Armenian patriarch
A Turkish man accused of firing in the air outside an Armenian church
claimed Wednesday his real target had been Patriarch Mesrob II, the
spiritual leader of the tiny Armenian community, the Anatolia news
agency reported.
"I had prepared it for (Mesrob) Mutafyan II," Volkan Karova shouted
to reporters here as he and fellow suspect Yýlmaz Can Özalp were
being escorted to the prosecutor's office to give their testimony,
the agency reported.
It was not clear whether he had intended to physically attack the
patriarch or scare him. Later Wednesday, a court charged the two men
with "threatening by firing shots" and "carrying an unlicensed gun"
and sent them to jail pending trial, the agency said. The pair were
arrested late Sunday just hours after two men fired a shot in the air
outside a church in the city's Kumkapý district. At the time, a
ceremony was being held for slain ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant
Dink.