After taking their statements, officials released the men. A date has yet to be set for the first hearing.

“Most recently, we had one man come on Thursday last week at 8:10 a.m.,” Tufan said. “He told us over the intercom that he was a policeman who was there to do a routine check.”

Tufan said that radio personnel refused to open the door, and the man eventually left. When the Christians discussed the visit with the local security office later in the day, officials denied that they had sent anyone to the radio station that morning.

A second man rang the bell two hours later, claiming to be a salesman. Using security camera footage, radio staff members watched from inside the apartment as he eventually gave up waiting for the door to open and went into the sports association offices across the hall.

Two months ago, the radio station installed shutters over its windows to prevent them from being broken almost weekly, Tufan said.

President in Denial

“There are no attacks targeting Christians in Turkey,” Turkish President Abdullah Gul told a Council of Europe gathering in Strasbourg, France on Wednesday (October 3).

He claimed that attacks against Christians were “political crimes,” and mentioned the murder of Catholic Priest Andrea Santoro in February 2006, according to an October 4 article in the Turkish Daily News. He said that the murderer, a juvenile, had been quickly captured and tried before independent courts.

An Ankara appeals court yesterday upheld the murderer’s jail sentence of 18 years and 10 months. During initial police interrogations, the killer reportedly confessed that he had murdered the priest as revenge against Danish cartoons of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam.

Gul did not mention the brutal torture and murder in April of the three Christians at Zirve offices in Malatya. The murderers said they had killed the Christians to serve their country and because the Christians were attacking their religion, according to initial press reports.

“In the last year, there have been scores of threats or attacks on congregations and church buildings,” a report by the legal committee of the Turkish Alliance of Protestant Churches said last month.

“It’s not really possible for the government be completely unaware of this,” Tufan said. “There has been an increase of attacks since Malatya.”

Copyright 2007 Compass Direct News