İSTANBUL, 30 Kasım (Reuters) - Süryani Turabdin Mor Gabriel Vakfı Yönetim Kurulu Başkanı Kuryakos Ergün, Mardin in Midyat ilçesinde kaçırılan rahip Daniel Savcı nın telefonla kendilerini arayarak Batman da serbest bırakıldığını bildirdiğini söyledi.
Anadolu Ajansı nın haberine göre Ergün, gazetecilere yaptığı açıklamada, rahip Savcı nın yaklaşık bir saat önce Deyrul Umur Manastırı nı arayarak Batman da serbest bırakıldığını, tanıdığı bir ailenin yanında olduğunu ve sağlık durumunun iyi olduğunu aktardığını ifade etti.
Haber televizyonları daha önce yayınladıkları haberlerde, Rahip Savcı nın Batman da "kurtarıldığını" duyurmuştular.

17:37 30Nov2007 RTRS-UPDATE 3-Kidnapped priest released in southeast Turkey

(adds details of captors)
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Nov 30 (Reuters) - A Syriac Christian priest kidnapped this week in southeast Turkey was released unharmed on Friday.
"The priest was released in good condition...," Batman province Deputy Governor Aziz Mercan told Reuters.
Television images showed the bearded man wiping tears from his eyes and embracing security personnel.
Unknown assailants ambushed Daniel Savci s car on Wednesday as the 55-year-old priest was travelling to the Mor Yakup monastery near the town of Midyat. The kidnappers were reported to have sought a ransom of 300,000 euros ($442,400).
"Given the information obtained from the priest, we now know who the perpetrators are, and security forces are tracking them down now," said Mercan, who did not give the suspects names.
Savci said his three abductors were men in their 20s and they kidnapped him for ransom money, said Osman Uner, a friend of Savci s who met the priest after his release.
An official said the kidnapping was not religiously motivated.
"There is no ideological organisation at work, this was a completely economically motivated crime," said Mercan.
Most of Turkey s 75 million people are Muslim and it has barely 100,000 Christians, mostly of Greek and Armenian origin. The Syriacs are an ancient community that still speaks Aramaic, the****guage spoken by Jesus.
Turkey s Christian community has been targeted in a spate of recent attacks that have worried the government, human rights groups and the European Union, which Ankara hopes to join.
Three Christians, two Turks and a German, had their throats slit by youths who burst into their Bible publishing house in the southeastern town of Malatya in April.
Turkish Armenian writer Hrant Dink was murdered in Istanbul in January by a young nationalist gunman and an Italian Catholic priest was killed in his church by a youth in Trabzon in 2006.


Friday, 30 November 2007 17:37:27RTRS