Andrea Santoro

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Father Andrea Santoro was a 61 year-old Catholic priest who was murdered on February 5, 2006 in the Santa Maria Church in Trabzon, Turkey, where he served as a member of the Catholic church's Fidei donum missionary program. He was shot dead from behind while kneeling in prayer in the church. A witness heard the perpetrator shouting "Allahu Akbar".^[1] A 16-year-old high school student was arrested two days after the shooting carrying a 9mm pistol. The student told police he had been influenced by the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.^[2] The murder was preceded by massive anti-Christian propaganda in the Turkish popular press.^[3]

On October 10, 2006, the accused Oğuzhan Akdin was sentenced to 18 years and ten months in jail for "premeditated murder" by a court in Ankara.^[4] According to the apostolic vicar to Anatolia, Msgr. Luigi Padovese, neither the killer nor his mother showed any remorse during the trial. She even compared her son to Mehmet Ali Ağca, who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981, and said that his deed "was committed in the name of Allah and was a gift to the state and the nation".^[5] As the murderer of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink also came from Trabzon and also under 18 years of age, Turkish police is investigating possible connections between the slayings of Santoro and Dink.^[6]

At Don Santoro's funeral at the Basilica of St. John Lateran Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the vicar of the Diocese of Rome, mentioned in his homily that the possible beatification process for Don Santoro may be opened after February 2011.