February 9, 2006
A 16-year-old assailant shot and killed an Italian Catholic priest in the Turkish city of Trabzon on Sunday, shouting the opening phrase of the Muslim call to prayer before he fled the scene.
Father Andrea Santoro, 60, was shot twice in the back on February 5 as he knelt praying after Sunday afternoon mass in the front row of the Santa Maria Catholic Church. The two bullets pierced his heart and liver, a local prosecutor said, killing him almost instantly.
Turkish police launched a major manhunt to capture the juvenile suspect, found early this morning hiding in a relative’s home near the city center. According to CNN Turk, ballistic tests have confirmed a 9 mm pistol seized during the arrest as the weapon used in the crime.
Authorities said the high school student, identified only by his initials, O.A., remained under police interrogation, which CNN Turk said was being conducted in the presence of his parents and two siblings. Another five teenage youths were reportedly detained this afternoon on the basis of the youth’s initial questioning.
According to a report released late this afternoon by the private NTV television station, “during his first interrogation the youth confessed that he committed the murder as a reaction against the caricatures of the prophet Muhammad.”
Speculation had remained high in Turkey for the past 48 hours as to whether the killer’s motive was linked to publication of controversial Danish cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad as a terrorist. Thousands of Turks attended public protests this past weekend in many Turkish cities and towns.
Timing Not Incidental
"The fact that he was killed at this point in time does not seem incidental to me," Luigi Padovese, the apostolic vicar of Anatolia, told Asia News yesterday from Trabzon. “Besides, the atmosphere here [in Turkey] is too heated, not to say over-heated. And here too, fanatical Islamists can be found.”
Hours after the murder, Papal Nuncio Antonio Lucibello confirmed to the press that the attacker had shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is great) as he ran out of the church. Although the phrase is an Arabic acclamation of prayer, it is also used as a rallying cry by Islamist militants.
Eyewitnesses to the murder included a young Turkish employee of the church standing near the kneeling Santoro and the Italian priest’s niece who lived with him. The rest of the congregation had already left the chapel sanctuary.
In an initial interview, Trabzon Gov. Huseyin Yavuzdemir told the semi-official Anatolia News Agency that local police knew about previous threats and media reports against the priest over alleged attempts to convert Muslims. But the governor said there was no indication that the church was involved in missionary work, and the priest had not requested police protection.
Turkish society and government remain deeply suspicious of Christian missionaries, accusing them of political motives that threaten the nation’s Muslim culture and identity. Less than 1 percent of Turkey’s citizens are non-Muslim.
Another theory given prominence in the Turkish press alleged that the local mafia controlling human trafficking in the Black Sea region might have ordered the murder. Fr. Santoro had made concerted efforts to rescue Russian and other foreign women involved in prostitution rings in Trabzon.
Several newspapers even fielded the notion that the youthful murderer was a right-wing fan of Mehmet Ali Agca, an unbalanced criminal who had attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981.
But whatever the motive, Turkish government authorities swiftly condemned the murder.
“We believe it is entirely an individual act,” Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told the press yesterday, “but we don’t know the reason behind it or who encouraged it.”
