Italian priest shot:

A Catholic priest was shot and killed in Trabzon, Turkey, on Sunday, and authorities there are investigating whether the murder was related to Islamic anger over cartoons published in European newspapers.

Father Andrea Santoro, an Italian missionary priest who had served in Turkey for 10 years, was shot twice at point-blank range in his church in the port town on the Black Sea. The gunman shouted, "Allah is great!" before running out of the church.

Bishop Luigi Padovese of Anatolia, who rushed to the scene on hearing of the priest’s death, told the AsiaNews service that the timing of the killing– as Muslim militants around the world protest the cartoons mocking Islam– "does not seem incidental to me." The bishop reported that the atmosphere in Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country, "is heated, not to say overheated." Christian churches were under heavy security in the aftermath of the killing.

Government investigators are also considering the possibilities that the assassin was a lone fanatic or that he was connected with the thriving prostitution business in Trabzon. Father Santoro had helped many young woman escape from lives of prostitution.