The 16-year-old boy, identified only as O.A., had pleaded guilty to shooting Priest Andrea Santoro while he was praying at a church in the Black Sea port city of Trabzon in February 2006. Witnesses said the boy shouted "Allahu Akbar" ("God is greatest") before shooting the 61-year-old priest dead.
A year ago, a Trabzon court found the boy guilty of premeditated murder, illegal possession of a firearm and endangering public security. His family appealed against the jail sentence, but on Thursday, October 4, the Ankara Appeals Court confirmed the sentence of 18 years and 10 months on the boy.
Legal experts have said however he may be released after about 10 years. Turkey’s government, which has Islamist roots, strongly condemned the shooting, which coincided with increased religious tensions worldwide after the publication of controversial cartoons about Islam’s Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers. Pope Benedict XVI, who visited Turkey last November, paid personal tribute to Santoro at a mass in the Vatican.
EU CONCERNED
News of Thursday’s sentencing of the teenager came after European Union politicians said the murder of the priest showed Turkey must do more to protect individual Christians, priests and missionaries in the country.
In April this year assailants tortured and slit the throats of three Christians, identified as Turkish workers Pastor Necati Aydin, 36, and Ugur Yuksel, 32, and their German colleague Tilmann Geske, 46, in the office of a Christian publishing house in the town of Malatya.
The trial against the suspected murderers continues. In statements leaked to Turkish media, the five young Muslim suspects said they killed the three believers because they were "attacking" Islam. In comments released this week widow Semse Aydin said the shock of the murder of her husband Necati still hits her every morning when she awakens.
Equally painful, she said, is knowing that her two children, Elisa (Elisha), 6, and daughter Ester (Esther), 5, will grow up without their father’s loving care and nurture. "Necati’s absence is a cross for me every day. It’s as if after nine years of marriage and two children, God is saying to me, ‘I want him back.’"
CHRISTIAN CONVERTS
Other Christians preaching to Muslims face prosecution, including Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal, who in October 2006 were charged with "insulting Turkish identity," reviling Islam and secretly compiling files on private citizens for a local Bible correspondence course. In a controversial move Judge Metin Tamirci on September 26 prolonged the case and set the Christians’ next court date for November 29, although their defense team said they may still win the trial.
In July State Prosecutor Ahmet Demirhuyuk reportedly told the court that there was “not a single piece of credible evidence” to support the accusations against the two men, both converts from Islam to Christianity.
A new state prosecutor, Adnan Ozcan, replaced Demirhuyuk, apparently under pressure from three plaintiffs,’ two of them minors, who have accused Astan and Topal of slandering Turkey and Islam. If convicted of "insulting Turkishness" the men could be sentenced to up to two years imprisonment, BosNewsLife monitored.
The EU and other organizations have urged Turkey to change the legislation, and allow more religious freedom and freedom of expression. Turkish Protestants have reported increasing attacks and threats in recent months despite claims by President Abdullah Gul that Christians in Turkey are not targeted.
Soner Tufan, director of Radio Shema, a Christian station in Ankara, said that since the Malatya murders, at least three times a month men have come to the station’s door and threatened workers, reported Compass Direct News, a Christian news agency.
In Antalya, Antalya Bible Church pastor Ramazan Arkan has reportedly said that he is pursuing four court cases against a construction worker who began threatening church members in May, and one member of his flock was assaulted after a church service in August. (With BosNewsLife’s Stefan J. Bos and reporting from Turkey).
