Turkish Believers "Satanically Tortured" Before Being Killed*

By BosNewsLife News Center

ISTANBUL, TURKEY (BosNewsLife) -- There was increased concern Thursday,  
about the plight of active Christians in Turkey after investigators
revealed that three evangelical believers were "satanically tortured"
last week before being killed.

The influential American human rights group International Christian
Concern (ICC) with website www.persecution.org told BosNewsLife that the
circumstances surrounding the deaths of German Tilman Ekkehart Geske,
45, and Turkish Christians Necati Aydin, 35, and Ugur Yuksel ,32, at the
Christian Zirve publishing house were even worse than thought.

ICC, based in Washington DC, said the troubles began on Easter Sunday
when five of the alleged killers had been to a service that Pastor
Necati arranged in the eastern town of Malatya, the capital of Malatya
province.

The men were reportedly known to local believers as searching for the
faith in Christ. The suspects, one of whom is the son of a mayor in the
Province of Malatya, are part of a tarikat, or a group of "faithful
believers" in Islam, ICC added.

Tarikat membership is "like a fraternity membership" and means that "no
one can get into public office without membership" of such a group, ICC
said. "On the day of the killing, the young Muslim men had arranged to
meet the Christians at 10:00 am [local time] to ostensibly learn more
about the Bible. They had gathered guns, bread knives, ropes and towels
[as] they knew there would be a lot of blood, ready for their act of
service to Allah," ICC stressed.

READING BIBLE

After Necati read a chapter from the Bible the assault reportedly began.
"The young men tied Ugur, Necati, and Tilman's hands and feet to chairs
as they videoed their work on their cell phones," ICC said, adding that
what "followed in the next three hours is beyond belief."

ICC said the men were "disemboweled, and their intestines sliced up in
front of their eyes. They were emasculated and watched as those body
parts were destroyed." The group added that "fingers were chopped off"
and "their noses and mouths and anuses were sliced open" as part of what
it called "satanic torture."

It added that "possibly the worst part was watching as their brothers
were likewise tortured. Tilman was stabbed 156 times, Necati 99 times
and Ugur's stabs were too numerous to count."
Finally, their throats were sliced from ear to ear, and their "heads
practically decapitated,"
ICC said.

Several hours later at 12:30 local time a fellow Christian reportedly
arrived at the publishing house but discovered that the door was locked
from the inside. After he called cell phones of the men, Ugur apparently
answered his phone saying: "We are not at the office. Go to the hotel
meeting. We are there. We will come there." Yet as Ugur spoke he heard
in the background weeping and a strange snarling sound, ICC said, citing
its investigation.

POLICE INTERVENTION

After he phoned police the nearest officer arrived in about five minutes
and pounded on the door shouting: "Police, open up,!" reports said.

Initially the officer apparently believed it was a domestic disturbance,
but when he heard another snarl and a gurgling moan he understood that
sound as human suffering, ICC explained. The officer "prepared the clip
in his gun and tried over and over again to burst through the door. One
of the frightened assailants unlocked the door for the policeman, who
entered to find a grisly scene."

Reports said the attack happened following Muslim protests against the
distribution of Bibles and other Christian literature by the publishing
house for which they worked.

One of the victims, Necati Aydin, a husband and father of two young
children, was also an actor who reportedly played the role of Jesus
Christ in a theater production that TURK-7 network aired over the Easter
holidays.

DETENTION DEMANDED

Prosecutors have asked a court to allow jailing 11 suspects, 10 young
men and a woman, pending trial over the gruesome murder of the three
Christians. A 12th suspect, allegedly the leader, remains in hospital
with a serious head injury after jumping from the third-floor office of
the Christian publishing house in Malatya where the victims were killed,
to escape arrest.

At least four of the suspects have reportedly been charged with
"founding a terrorist organization and murder within the framework of
the organization." In a first reaction, Tillman's wife publicly forgave
the those who killed her husband saying "they know not what they do."

ICC President Jeff King said he was impressed by the "contrast between
the acts of the killers and the forgiveness of Tillman's wife." He said
it was "glaring and in the end seems to be at the center of this story
for us. For in the end, these events serve as a stark reminder of the
difference between Islam and Christianity."

He added that, for "the 'faithful' Muslims, following their god meant
brutally killing three men [with the excuse] "we did this to protect
Islam". For the faithful Christians, following God meant forgiving the
men who had tortured and murdered their loved ones."

The attacks have added to concern among Turkish Christians who comprise
about 0.2 percent of the mainly Muslim nation of over 71 million people.
The murders followed the January murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist
Hrant Dink and the shooting of Italian Roman Catholic priest Andrea
Santoro in the town of Trabzon in February 2006. (With reporting from
Turkey).