The Turkish daily Today’s Zaman reports today that three people were found bound and blindfolded with their throats slashed at a building housing the Zirve Publishing House in the southeastern Turkish city of Malatya.
A fourth person is in critical condition after jumping off the building in an effort to escape the attackers.
Security officials said four people had been detained in connection with the attack.
Malatya Governor H. İbrahim Daşöz said that police had not ruled out the possibility that the killings might be the result of a fight between individuals at the publishing house, and confirmed that two were killed at the scene while a third died of his wounds in hospital. The governor also said one of the slain was a German citizen.
Security officials said that the Zirve publishing company prints Bibles.
Nationalists have protested outside Zirve in the past accusing the organization of proselytizing. The government and other Turkish officials have been critical of missionary work. Zirve reported that it had previously received threats.
The paper said that the attack recalled the murder earlier this year of Armenian-Turkish editor Hrant Dink by an ultranationalist teenage gunman, prompting extra security measures for writers and journalists. Dink was also from Malatya.
Source: Today's Zaman, Turkey, April 18, 2007
