Bishop in Turkey Links Priest's Murder to Muslim Protests

ANKARA, Turkey, FEB. 6, 2006 (Zenit.org).- A bishop sees a link between the killing of an Italian missionary priest and the protests of Muslim fundamentalists against the caricatures of Mohammed published in Western newspapers.

Bishop Luigi Padovese, apostolic vicar of Anatolia, said he did not think this connection with the murder of Father Andrea Santoro, 60, is "incidental."

"This morning I went to the morgue," he told the AsiaNews agency. "Father Andrea was killed with two shots: After the first, he was able to shout out to a young man who was in the Church with him to take cover; the second shot killed him."

Bishop Padovese added that the information he gathered today has led him to believe that the killer "was not a young man."

"Both the young man in the Church and the volunteer from Rome who helps out in the parish have spoken of an adult," the prelate said. "Father Andrea was kneeling; the person who shot did not even need to enter, he stayed at the church's door, at a distance of 4 or 5 meters. He took aim and fired."

Prelate's reasoning

The bishop excludes the hypothesis that Father Andrea was killed because of his efforts to rescue prostitutes from the mafias involved in human trafficking.

The prelate said he did not think that Father Santoro's "work was at such a level to provoke someone to eliminate him."

"One could have expected some kind of threat from criminal," but not a murder, he added.

Rather, Bishop Padovese sees a link with the Muslim protests during these days over the cartoons depicting Mohammed.

"The fact that he was killed at this point in time does not seem incidental to me; otherwise, it could also have happened some other time," the bishop said. "Besides, the atmosphere here too is heated, not to say overheated. And here too, fanatical Islamics can be found."