MALATYA, Turkey: Singing hymns in Turkish, mourners on Friday buried the German victim of this week's attack at a Christian publishing house, while local media reported police had detained an 11th suspect in the slayings.
The killing of the German and two Turks — who had converted to Christianity — highlighted the country's uneasy relationship with its minorities. Christians expressed fear that growing nationalism and intolerance could lead to more violence against them.
Police detained five people Wednesday at the scene of the attack Wednesday in the eastern city of Malatya, including one man who jumped out of the window to avoid arrest. Another five suspects were detained Thursday. Private Dogan news agency and other media reported that police detained an 11th suspect on Friday in Istanbul. Police there would not comment on the reports.
Hurriyet newspaper reported that some of the suspects told police they had carried out the killings to protect Islam. Police did not comment on the report.
The three victims were found with their hands and legs tied and their throats slit. Their faces were bruised, and the ropes had cut into their wrists.
On Friday, the Hurriyet reported that at least one victim had also been stabbed many times.
"There were so many stab wounds that we couldn't count them," Hurriyet quoted Dr. Murat Ugras as saying. "It was clearly torture."
German victim Tilmann Geske was buried at an Armenian cemetery in Malatya, overgrown with weeds. His wife and three children — aged 13, 10 and 8 — were among the mourners, who sang in Turkish to guitar music and prayed for forgiveness for the attackers. His youngest, Miriam, wept as dirt was shoveled onto his coffin.
Rev. Ahmet Guvener, the pastor at a church in the city of Diyarbakir, prayed for tolerance.
"We are part of this country, we are not foreigners here," Guvener said.
The attack added to concerns in Europe about whether the predominantly Muslim country — which is bidding for European Union membership — can protect its religious minorities.
Christian leaders said they worried that nationalists were stoking hostilities against non-Turks and non-Muslims by exploiting growing uncertainty over Turkey's place in the world.
The uncertainty — and growing suspicion against foreigners — has been driven by the faltering EU bid, a resilient Kurdish separatist movement and by increasingly vocal Islamists who see themselves — and Turkey — as locked in battle with a hostile Christian West.
"Our lives are in danger because of this mind-set," the Rev. Ihsan Ozbek, pastor of the Kurtulus Church in Ankara, told a news conference in Malatya. He said there was a "witch hunt" under way against Christians and other minorities.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who as Vatican secretary of state is Pope Benedict XVI's top aide, called the attack "an insane act by a fanatic minority."
"We must not waste the fruits of the pope's visit to Turkey, which has really brought us closer," Bertone was quoted as saying by Italian news agency ANSA.
The pope visited Turkey in November, promising greater understanding and dialogue with Islam.
Nationalists, who have long dominated public debate in Turkey, have also begun to call for Turkey to withdraw its EU bid and make its own way in the world. Some young men indoctrinated with a vision of Turkish greatness — and with a view of the West as intent on keeping the Islamic world weak — view non-Muslims with suspicion.
"The problem is our education and our media," Mustafa Efe, head of Mujde FM, or Miracle FM, a Christian broadcasting station, said after traveling to Malatya to meet Protestant pastors. "They always say Christianity is dangerous because Christians are trying to break up Turkey."
Christians make up just a fraction of 1 percent of Turkey's population of 71 million.
"There is this general atmosphere of fear — that Turkey will be segmented," said Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a human rights lawyer who represented one of the slain Christians, Necati Aydin, 26, in an earlier court case. Aydin was charged with insulting Islam and spent a month in jail after he was found distributing Bibles in the Aegean city of Izmir.
Christians and other minorities have watched Turkey's struggling EU bid with alarm. Many worry the papacy of Benedict XVI, who when he was still a cardinal spoke against Turkey's bid for membership, would only contribute to their problems.
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