Local officials may have been involved in Malatya murders
Testimony at the trial of the killers of three Christians in Malatya, Turkey, in April 2007 strongly suggests that local security officials were involved in the crime. Called to the stand on Monday were Mehmet Ulger, former gendarmerie commander of Malatya province, and Ruhi Abat, theology instructor at a local university.
The retired gendarmerie commander and the theology researcher have suspected links to the crime. In January an anonymous letter sent to Turkish churches and obtained by the media claimed that then-commander Ulger instigated the murders and directed Abat to prepare arguments against missionary activity.
According to phone records, Abat made 1,415 telephone calls to gendarmerie intelligence forces in the six-month period prior to the 2007 murders. During his cross examination, he told the courtroom that the frequent contact resulted from gendarmerie requesting information on his research of local missionary activity.
Abat was part of a team of six researchers that focused on the social effects of missionary activity within the Malatya region.
“The information I gave the police and gendarmerie was aimed at answering the criticisms that missionaries had about Islam,” he said.
That works out to almost eight phone calls per day, seven days per week—excessive and suspicious to say the least. And all for some information related to theology and apologetics. Right!
The testimony of Mr Ulger, who was arrested last month for alleged involved in the Ergenekon conspiracy, was also evasive. When asked if he viewed Christian missionary activity in Turkey as a crime, he dissembled.
Avoiding a direct answer, Ulger said no such crime existed in Turkey’s penal system, but that gendarmerie classified such activity as “extreme right-wing.”
“The gendarmerie considers this to be the same [level of extremism] as radical Islamic activity,” he said.
Christian missionaries are as radical as Islamic extremists? That sounds rather like what we heard from the US Department of Homeland Security earlier this week.
This Saturday, 18 April, marks the second anniversary of the brutal murder of the three Malatya Christians. To commemorate their martyrdom, the Association of Protestant Churches in Turkey has called for an international day of prayer for Turkey.
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