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Turkish police make further arrests in connection with Christian deaths at Bible publishing house
Turkish police have detained 10 people in connection with the killing of three people, including a German, at a Bible publishing house in the mainly Muslim country, authorities said yesterday.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:00 April 20, 2007
- Image Credit: AP
- Semsa Aydin (centre), wife of one of the three killed, at the Malatya governor's office.
Istanbul: Turkish police have detained 10 people in connection with the killing of three people, including a German, at a Bible publishing house in the mainly Muslim country, authorities said yesterday.
The three were found on Wednesday with their throats slit at the Zirve publishing house in Malatya, a city in the southeast of the country.
Voicing shock across the country at the latest attack on Turkey's small Christian minority, a headline in the Milliyet daily said: "The nightmare continues."
It linked the new attack with the murders of Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink in January and an Italian priest last year.
Custody
Malatya Governor Halil Ebrahim Dasoz told reporters the number of people in custody had risen to 10 and that all were from the same age group. He gave no further details.
The first five suspects, detained at the crime scene on Wednesday, were 19- and 20-year-old students who lived in the same hostel run by an Islamic foundation, newspapers said.
They said the youths carried notes in their pockets saying: "We are brothers. We are going to our death." They reportedly told police they carried out the killing for the "homeland".
Turkish Christians voiced distress over the killings, saying distrust of Christianity was being stirred up in Turkey where there are just 100,000 Christians in a population of 74 million.
"It was a disgusting, savage incident. I link it to comments made by party leaders, feeding people with comments like 'there are missionaries everywhere'," Pastor Behnan Konutgan said by telephone from Malatya where he was visiting relatives of the victims.
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