TURKISH PROSECUTOR WANTS 11 JAILED OVER CHRISTIAN MURDERS

Agence France Presse — English
April 22, 2007 Sunday

A Turkish prosecutor called on Sunday for 11 suspects to be jailed
pending trial over the gruesome murder of three Christians in eastern
Turkey, the Anatolia news agency reported.

The prosecutor made the demand after questioning the suspects —
10 young men and a woman — for about eight hours in Malatya city,
where a German and two Turkish converts to Christianity had their
throats slit Wednesday.

A judge was due to make a ruling later on Sunday.

A 12th suspect, allegedly the leader, remains in hospital with a
serious head injury after jumping from the third-floor office of the
Christian publishing house in Malatya where the victims were killed,
to escape arrest.

Doctors say the condition of the suspect — named in the press as
Emre Gunaydin, 19 — is improving and he may be fit for questioning
within several days.

The murders were the latest attack on minorities in Turkey following
the killings of a Roman Catholic priest last year and an ethnic
Armenian journalist in January.

The media have speculated that the assailants belong to a nationalist
Islamist cell similar to one in the northern city of Trabzon blamed
for the murder of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.

Police brought the suspects to the courthouse in armoured vehicles
and stepped up security in the area, Anatolia said.

One of the suspects allegedly filmed the murders on his mobile
telephone.

He told the police he was asked to record the grisly scenes by
Gunaydin, the mass-selling Sabah daily said.

The three victims, who belonged to the tiny Protestant community
in Malatya, were tied to chairs and tortured for three hours before
being killed as their assailants interrogated them on their missionary
activities.

The Zirve publishing house distributed bibles and published Christian
literature.

Four suspects were captured at the crime scene when police raided the
publishing house, alerted by a local Protestant who grew suspicious
when he found the office door locked.

Gunaydin had reportedly visited the publishing house several times
and even attended an Easter dinner hosted by the community in Malatya
this month.

The sole woman suspect, detained Saturday, has been identified as
his girlfriend.

Officials have not revealed the details of the remaining six men,
who were detained Thursday and Friday, saying only that all suspects
are aged 19 and 20.

Newspapers said one of them was the son of the mayor of a nearby town
from the ruling Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party.

The police are looking for seven other people, including a bearded
man believed to have fled the publishing house shortly before police
arrived, newspapers said.

Germany, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union
that Turkey is seeking to join, has urged Ankara to take measures to
ensure the protection of religious freedom.

The German victim, Tilmann Geske, was buried in Malatya, where he
had lived since 2003.

His wife Suzanna told the Vatan daily Sunday that she and her three
children would continue to live there "until Jesus gives me a sign
to go."