No Justice for Turkey’s Christian Martyrs?

on March 7, 2014

Seven years have passed since the horrific deaths of Turkish Christians Necati Aydin, 35, and Ugur Yuksel, 32, and German Christian Tilmann Geske 46. There is still no justice for the families of the three men who were tortured and killed at the Malatya, Turkey offices of Zirve Christian Publishing. And now, thanks to changes in the judicial system passed by the Turkish Parliament, justice may never be meted out on the Islamist murderers.

In a report on Tuesday, March 4, World Watch Monitor reported that the proposed new Turkish laws would reduce from ten years to five years the detention limit for suspects on trial who have not yet been convicted. As a result, the five Turkish murder suspects “would be eligible for immediate release” and set free on bail.

The Association of Protestant Churches in Turkey spokesman, Umut Sahin, told World Watch Monitor that because the suspects “face a life sentence,” it is likely that they will flee the country. Lawyers representing the victims’ families have asked that the suspects be required to wear electronic tracking devices when released, but, sayWorld Watch Monitor, “any formal conditions of their bail would be decided by the court.”

World Watch Monitor revealed that Susanne Geske, Tilmann Geske’s widow, who still lives in Malatya, admitted that “the thought of meeting one of these men downtown or at the mall” was something that she and her children would “have to get used to.” Susanne and the other family members of the victims, have already had to endure over six years of waiting for justice, including 92 hearings at which the graphic details of the murders have been repeated over and over.

Aydin and Yuksel, both converts from Islam, and Geske who had lived in Turkey for ten years, believed that they were meeting with sincere seekers on April 18, 2007, the day of their murder. But the five young men, all between the ages of 19-21, who came to see them were participating in murders that had been planned “well in advance” and in a “highly calculated manner” as it was later revealed.

Today’s Zaman reported on January 27, 2013 that documents were found on a computer belonging to gendarmerie intelligence officer Major Haydar Yesil, one of the suspects. The hard drive of the computer contained video footage of the victims, recordings of their phone conversations, and a chart of the organizational structure of Christian missionaries in Malatya.

Another Today’s Zaman article, June 24, 2012, informed that the Malatya murders were thought to be “part of the Cage Action Plan, a subversive plot allegedly devised by military officers seeking to undermine the government through the assassination of non-Muslims and other acts of terror.” Cage plan documents referred to the killing of Aydin, Yuksel, and Geske, of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, and of Catholic priest Father Andrea Santoro as an “operation.”

Regardless of the political connections to the killings, it is unthinkable that men who committed such heinous crimes should be released on bail. Geske, Aydin, and Yuksel were not ‘assassinated,’ they were tortured and ritually killed. Reports indicated that the men’s fingers were sliced to the bone, in accordance with the instructions in the Koran. Finally their throats were cut. In spite of this, Middle East Concern reported in Bos News Life that Turkish Christians want the five alleged perpetrators to “feel a true and deep conviction about what they have done, and understand that their wrong-doing is not too great for Christ’s forgiveness.”

World Watch Monitor reported on  memorial services on the first anniversary of the death of the Malatya Martyrs. The lettering on the gravestone of Ugur Yuksel read, “He was killed like Jesus,” and on either side of the monument are the words from one of Yuksel’s favorite Psalms, “Whom have I in heaven in but You? And I desire nothing on earth but being with You.” The declaration applies to all three of these courageous Christians very well, as does the  knowledge contained in it that no matter whether or not there is justice in this world, there will be justice for these martyrs in Eternity.

 

 

 

 

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