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ITALIAN PRIEST'S ATTACKER SENTENCED IN TURKEY
Reuters
Dec 29 2008
UK
ANKARA (Reuters) - A Turkish court sentenced a man to four years in
prison Monday for stabbing an Italian Catholic priest in 2007 in a
case that has highlighted attacks against Christians in Muslim but
secular Turkey.
A court in the coastal city of Izmir in western Turkey passed the
sentence against Ramazan Bay for stabbing Adriano Franchini, Anatolian
news agency reported. Franchini survived the attack.
Bay told the court he had been influenced by media reports of other
attacks against Christians, including the shooting death of Andrea
Santoro, another Italian Catholic priest, in the Turkish Black Sea
city of Trabzon in 2006.
Turkey's small Christian community has been targeted in a spate of
attacks over several years, prompting concern among human rights
groups and the European Union, which Ankara hopes to join.
Three Christians, two Turks and a German, had their throats slit by
youths who burst into their Bible publishing house in the southeastern
town of Malatya last year.
Turkish Armenian writer Hrant Dink was also slain last year in Istanbul
by a young nationalist gunman. A prosecutor on Monday indicted a
colonel for failing to provide protection to Dink, who had received
several death threats, Anatolian said.
Christians in Turkey number barely 100,000 in a total population of
nearly 75 million.
Reuters
Dec 29 2008
UK
ANKARA (Reuters) - A Turkish court sentenced a man to four years in
prison Monday for stabbing an Italian Catholic priest in 2007 in a
case that has highlighted attacks against Christians in Muslim but
secular Turkey.
A court in the coastal city of Izmir in western Turkey passed the
sentence against Ramazan Bay for stabbing Adriano Franchini, Anatolian
news agency reported. Franchini survived the attack.
Bay told the court he had been influenced by media reports of other
attacks against Christians, including the shooting death of Andrea
Santoro, another Italian Catholic priest, in the Turkish Black Sea
city of Trabzon in 2006.
Turkey's small Christian community has been targeted in a spate of
attacks over several years, prompting concern among human rights
groups and the European Union, which Ankara hopes to join.
Three Christians, two Turks and a German, had their throats slit by
youths who burst into their Bible publishing house in the southeastern
town of Malatya last year.
Turkish Armenian writer Hrant Dink was also slain last year in Istanbul
by a young nationalist gunman. A prosecutor on Monday indicted a
colonel for failing to provide protection to Dink, who had received
several death threats, Anatolian said.
Christians in Turkey number barely 100,000 in a total population of
nearly 75 million.