ALLEGED MASTERMINDS OF MALATYA MURDERS NAMED IN COURT

Compass Direct News : TURKEY - ALLEGED MASTERMINDS OF MALATYA MURDERS NAMED IN COURT

Despite new court testimony naming a web of ranking local officials behind the slaughter of three Christians in Malatya last year, defense lawyers for the alleged murderers attempted to turn last week’s hearing into an investigation into Christian missionary activities.

The defense also pursued a line of questioning linked to a farfetched conspiracy theory, based on the murderers’ claims that the Malatya office of Zirve Publishing Co. was secretly linked to the illegal Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist group.

But the firsthand testimony of a prosecution witness claiming to know personally the instigators of the deadly plot dominated Friday’s (July 4) hearing, with plaintiff lawyers concluding this put them “one step further” in unraveling the case.

Playing to rising anti-Christian sentiments in 99 percent Muslim Turkey, the murderers’ attorneys peppered four of the six witnesses testifying at hearing with probing questions about their personal religious beliefs and involvement in Christian activities.

“Don’t bother with the murders, tell us about missionary work!” shouted a sarcastic headline on the front page of Taraf newspaper the morning after the trial.

It was the eighth hearing in the case, trying five murder suspects caught at the scene and two accomplices for the April 18, 2007 murders of Turkish Christians Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske in a Christian publishing office in southeastern Turkey.

Although the presiding judge accepted most plaintiff objections to irrelevant defense questions, the day-long hearing was punctuated by recurring, heated shouting matches across the courtroom between the two ranks of attorneys.