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Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 13-05-10
CONTENTS
[01] Turkish male arrested over allegations of planning to assassinate
Ecumenical Patriarch
[01] Turkish male arrested over allegations of planning to assassinate
Ecumenical Patriarch
ANKARA (ANA/MPA - A. Abatzis) - A man was arrested and two are
being sought for allegedly planning to assassinate Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew on May 29, the 560th anniversary of the fall
of Constantinople to Ottoman Turks, according to Turkish television
channel NTV on Friday.
According to NTV, A. Serdar was arrested following a letter sent to the
prosecutor of the central Turkish city of Kayseri, which turned the case
over to the the prosecutor's office in Turkey's capital Ankara. The
letter quoted by NTV said that three people traveled to Istanbul to
prepare the attempt.
The arrestee, A. Serdar, denied the charges, saying he was visiting
his relatives.
Turkish police notified the prosecutors that they had another letter on
file since 2008 charging the same person with the attempted assassination
of the head of the Greek Orthodox church; that letter had been sent to
the Istanbul prosecutors at the time.
Bartholomew, based in Istanbul, is the spiritual leader of the world's
estimated 300 million Orthodox Christians; in March he became the first
Ecumenical Patriarch to attend the installation of a new Pope since the
Great Schism of 1054.
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