KIDNAPPED PRIEST FREED IN TURKEY
by Peter Lamprecht

Journal Chretien
e4072
Nov 30 2007
France

Motive for abduction of Syrian Orthodox clergyman remains uncertain.

A Syrian Orthodox priest kidnapped in southeastern Turkey Wednesday
(November 28) walked free from his captors this afternoon, a church
source said.

Father Edip Daniel Savci, 42, was released around noon in the city
of Batman , 70 kilometers (43 miles) north of Midyat, where he was
kidnapped.

"He called us himself and gave us the news," Yuhannan Gulten of Syrian
Orthodox Mor Gabriel Monastery south of Midyat told Compass.

"We immediately called the police, and they went to get him."

Gulten said that the priest’s captors had set him free without outside
intervention. He was unable to answer questions about Savci’s health,
the identity of his kidnappers or whether a ransom was paid.

"All we know is that the security forces are accompanying him here,
and we expect him within half and hour," Gulten said.

Conservative Haber7.com news website claimed that Savci’s captors
had also been captured but did not give further details.

The kidnappers had demanded 300,000 euros (US$443,720) in exchange
for the priest’s release when they contacted a fellow clergyman from
Savci’s mobile telephone soon after the abduction.

Batman Gov. Vekili Aziz Mercan said that Savci had been released in
the city center and telephoned Mor Gabriel monastery from a business
in Batman’s Sirinevler neighborhood, according to CNN Turk website.

The website reported that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
telephoned Mor Gabriel Monastery to congratulate the monks on the
priest’s release.

It remains unclear why unidentified assailants first abducted and
then released the hard-working priest, who took care of 12 children
at his monastery and doubled as the village repairman.

Though the incident appears to have been done for money, the current
anti- Chris tian atmosphere in Turkey may have influenced the
kidnappers, columnist Murat Belge wrote today.

"At least society will look at it as a ‘partial good work’ [if I
kidnap a Chris tian] – that’s an advantage," the writer for daily
Radikal said, in an attempt to simulate the kidnapper’s reasoning.

He commented that the words, "be smart" which reportedly preceded
the captor’s demand for ransom in a text message sent on November 28,
were an indication of an anti- Chris tian motive.

The phrase alludes to Yasin Hayal, one of the men charged with planning
the death of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in January. As Hayal was
brought to an Istanbul courtroom in January, he shouted an apparent
threat to Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, "Orhan Pamuk, be smart ! Be
smart!"

Violent attacks against Chris tians in Turkey have been on the rise
in recent years.

In February 2006, a young Turkish teenager shot and killed a Catholic
priest in the northern port city of Trabzon . Last week saw the opening
hearing of the trial of five young men who tortured and murdered
three Protestants at a Chris tian publishing house in Malatya in April.