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ANTI-TERROR POLICE FOIL ALLEGED PLOT TO KILL CHRISTIAN CLERIC IN ISTANBUL
Hurriyet
March 7 2011
Turkey
Istanbul police's anti-terror unit apprehended two suspects accused
of plotting to assassinate a priest in the city's Fatih district,
Dogan news agency, or DHA, reported Saturday.
Law enforcement officers alleged that a suspect who was identified
only as E.T., and who was reported to be under 18 years of age, offered
18-year-old Okan G. 50 Turkish Liras to kill the unnamed priest.
Police raided the suspects' homes in Istanbul's Gaziosmanpasa district
and detained the pair, seizing two guns in the process. Officers later
revealed that one of the guns could be altered to shoot metal balls.
The suspects were later taken for questioning at the Istanbul Police
Department on Vatan Avenue in the Fatih district.
The plot comes after several Christian figures were killed in Turkey
between 2006 and 2010. Andrea Santoro, a Catholic priest stationed in
the Black Sea province of Trabzon, was shot and killed by a 16-year-old
youth while praying at the city's Santa Maria Church. One year later,
the editor-in-chief of the bilingual weekly Agos, Armenian-Turkish
journalist Hrant Dink, was allegedly killed by Ogun Samast, who later
confessed to the crime.
In April 2007, Christian missionaries Necati Aydin, Ugur Yuksel
and German citizen Tilmann Geske were reportedly tortured before
being murdered at the Zirve Publishing House in the eastern province
of Malatya.
Last year, Italian Bishop Luigi Padovese, the vicar apostolic of
Anatolia in Turkey, was allegedly murdered by his private driver in
the southern district of Iskenderun.
From: A. Papazian
Hurriyet
March 7 2011
Turkey
Istanbul police's anti-terror unit apprehended two suspects accused
of plotting to assassinate a priest in the city's Fatih district,
Dogan news agency, or DHA, reported Saturday.
Law enforcement officers alleged that a suspect who was identified
only as E.T., and who was reported to be under 18 years of age, offered
18-year-old Okan G. 50 Turkish Liras to kill the unnamed priest.
Police raided the suspects' homes in Istanbul's Gaziosmanpasa district
and detained the pair, seizing two guns in the process. Officers later
revealed that one of the guns could be altered to shoot metal balls.
The suspects were later taken for questioning at the Istanbul Police
Department on Vatan Avenue in the Fatih district.
The plot comes after several Christian figures were killed in Turkey
between 2006 and 2010. Andrea Santoro, a Catholic priest stationed in
the Black Sea province of Trabzon, was shot and killed by a 16-year-old
youth while praying at the city's Santa Maria Church. One year later,
the editor-in-chief of the bilingual weekly Agos, Armenian-Turkish
journalist Hrant Dink, was allegedly killed by Ogun Samast, who later
confessed to the crime.
In April 2007, Christian missionaries Necati Aydin, Ugur Yuksel
and German citizen Tilmann Geske were reportedly tortured before
being murdered at the Zirve Publishing House in the eastern province
of Malatya.
Last year, Italian Bishop Luigi Padovese, the vicar apostolic of
Anatolia in Turkey, was allegedly murdered by his private driver in
the southern district of Iskenderun.
From: A. Papazian