Turkish police search theology professors' homes in murder probe

Mar 30, 2011, 12:15 GMT

Istanbul - Police searched the homes of a handful of Turkish theology professors on Wednesday in connection with a probe into the 2007 murder of three Christian missionaries, Turkish media reported.

Police raided the Istanbul apartment of Zekeriya Beyaz, a well- known theologian who had written an unpublished manuscript on the political activities of certain religious movements in Turkey, along with the homes and offices of at least four professors in other provinces.

Two Turkish converts to Christianity and a German national who ran the Zirve publishing house, which distributed Bibles, were murdered in the eastern province of Malatya in April 2007.

The incident, in which a group of Muslim men tortured the victims and slit their throats, shocked the country.

While the trial of the suspected murderers continues, prosecutors have begun exploring whether the killings are connected to Ergenekon, an alleged nationalist network accused of plotting to bring down the government.

The separate Ergenekon investigation and trial has seen the arrests of hundreds of people, including numerous journalists, academics and politicians, since it was launched in 2008.

'They have an authorization to search in connection with the Malatya murders. They are looking through books, magazines and computer records. I have no connection with these events whatsoever,' theology professor Dr. Abdurrahman Kucuk told broadcaster CNNTurk while his home was being searched.

Wednesday's raids came just a week after police searched the offices of a publishing house and the mainstream newspaper Radikal, confiscating copies of an unpublished manuscript, 'The Army of the Imam.'

The book, which prosecutors said was a document of interest in the Ergenekon investigation, alleges infiltration of the police force by Gulenists, members of a controversial Islamist group.

Its author, investigative journalist Ahmet Sik, is one of nearly 10 journalists and writers who have been arrested in the Ergenekon case within the last two months.

The journalists' arrests and confiscation of Sik's book have drawn sharp criticism from press freedom organizations and international observers, who have voiced serious concerns about freedom of expression in Turkey.

The country was ranked 138th place out of 178 countries in Reporters Without Borders' Press Freedom Index in 2010, down from 101st place three years earlier.

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