This article is not all that clear, but this may have been not a jihad plot, but part of a plan to destabilize the government and impose secular military rule. So it becomes another opportunity for the Islamic supremacist Erdogan government to solidify its power. “One arrested as plot to assasinate [sic] Patriarch Bartholomew uncovered,” by Bayram Kaya for Today’s Zaman, May 10 (thanks to Boulos):
The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has launched an investigation into an alleged plot to assassinate Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I on the 560th anniversary of the conquest of Ä°stanbul by the Ottomans, with police arresting one suspect and still seeking two others.
The probe was launched on an anonymous letter sent to the Kayseri Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office that informed officials about the plot. According to the letter, Serdar A., who was later detained by police, and two other suspects, who have not yet been identified, were planning to assassinate Bartholomew on May 29, the anniversary of Ä°stanbul’s conquest. The letter said the suspect traveled to Ä°stanbul between April 15 and 20 as part of their plan. He later went back to Kayseri to inform his two friends about the details of the plot to assassinate the patriarch.
Kayseri police learned about the plot after an anonymous person recently sent a note to a police department, asking authorities to be watchful against a possible attack against Bartholomew.
Police detained Serdar A. in the Melikgazi district of Kayseri as part of the investigation and are reportedly searching for the two other suspects. During a police interrogation, the suspect denied accusations that he was planning to kill the patriarch. He said he visited his relatives during his Ä°stanbul visit and looked for a job there. “I do not know even where Bartholomew is living. I do not know what his title or job is. I just saw him in the media. I have no plans or intentions to kill him,” he reportedly told the police. Police officers later sent the suspect to the Kayseri Courthouse to be interrogated by prosecutors. Serdar A. was arrested and sent to jail pending trial after the prosecutor’s questioning.
Police sources said the suspect was detained six times before for being involved in different crimes, including threatening and racketeering individuals.
This is the second time Turkish authorities have discovered a plot to assassinate Bartholomew.
A separate case filed regarding another plot to assassinate the Ä°stanbul-based leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians was earlier merged with the ongoing investigation into Ergenekon, a suspected criminal network charged with plotting to overthrow the Turkish government.
The plot to kill Bartholomew is thought to be part of the Cage Operation Action Plan, a subversive plot allegedly devised by military officers that sought to undermine the government through the assassination of non-Muslims and other acts of terror. The Cage plan was allegedly drawn up on the orders of Ergenekon. The Cage plan documents specifically refer to the killings of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, Catholic priest Father Andrea Santoro and three Christians in Malatya as an “operation.”
During an interview in 2009, Bartholomew said that “dark forces planned to use minorities to overthrow the government,” as revealed in the investigation into Ergenekon….
So now the Erdogan government is cast as the protector of the Christians — and will be only too glad to extend the Sharia contract of protection (dhimma) over them.