Priest's attacker sentenced to jail time
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Reuters
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Aralık 31, 2008 00:00
ANKARA - A Turkish court sentenced a man to four years in prison on Monday for stabbing an Italian Catholic priest in 2007 in a case that highlighted attacks against Christians in Muslim and secular Turkey.
A court in the coastal city of İzmir in western Turkey passed a sentence on Ramazan Bay for stabbing Adriano Franchini, the 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 death by shooting 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 Turkey 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.
Hrant Dink also stabbed
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 barely number 100,000 in the population of nearly 75 million.
Bay told the court he had been influenced by media reports of other attacks against Christians, including the death by shooting 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 Turkey 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.
Hrant Dink also stabbed
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 barely number 100,000 in the population of nearly 75 million.