ANKARA, Feb 5: An Italian Roman Catholic priest was shot dead in his church in the Turkish Black Sea city of Trabzon on Sunday. CNN Turk television said police were looking for a young man aged about 17 years old seen fleeing the scene.

The network showed a small crowd of onlookers near the Santa Maria church where the priest was killed. The state Anatolian news agency identified the dead man as Andrea Santaro, aged 60. Other Turkish media said he had been in Turkey about five years.

Anatolian quoted Trabzon governor Huseyin Yavuzdemir as saying: “We condemn this attack against a man of religion ... There are witnesses. The police are trying to catch the suspect based on information the witnesses gave.”

Turkey, like many other Muslim countries, has seen regular protests in recent days against sacrilegious cartoons published in several European newspapers.

Turkish leaders have expressed strong distaste at the cartoons, but have also called for calm and better understanding between different cultures and religious faiths.

Turkey’s non-Muslim clergy, including Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual head of the world’s Orthodox Christians, have also condemned the cartoons.

Violent attacks on Christian clergy are virtually unheard of in Turkey, which takes pride in its history as a meeting place of cultures and religions.—Reuters