AP Photo

The killings occurred in Malatya, a city in central Turkey known as a hotbed of Turkish nationalism and is the hometown of Mehmet Ali Agca, the gunman who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981.

Malatya Gov. Ibrahim Dasoz said two of the victims at the Zirve publishing house were found already dead and the third died after being taken to the hospital. All had their throats cut and their hands and legs were bound, he said.

Dasoz said police detained four suspects and were investigating whether another man who suffered head injuries when he jumped from the window of the publisher's office may have been involved in the attack. He was reported undergoing surgery for his injury.

The German Embassy said one victim was German. "I am shocked that a German citizen is among the victims. Even if the exact circumstances of the crime are not yet known, I most strongly condemn this brutal crime," German Ambassador Eckart *****z said in a statement.

Another victim was Turkish, Dasoz said, but he could not confirm the nationality of the third person killed.

Zirve's general manager told CNN-Turk television that his employees had recently been threatened. "We know that they have been receiving some threats," Hamza Ozant said, but could not say who made the threats.

The publishing house had been targeted previously in protests by nationalists who accused it of proselytizing in this overwhelmingly Muslim but officially secular country, Dogan news agency reported.

Making up less than 1 percent of Turkey's 70 million people, Christians have increasingly become targets amid what some fear is a rising tide of hostility toward non-Muslims.

In February 2006, a teenager fatally shot a Catholic priest as he prayed in his church, and two more Catholic priests were attacked later in the year. A November visit by Pope Benedict XVI was greeted by nonviolent protests, and early this year a gunman killed Armenian Christian editor Hrant Dink.

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Associated Press writer Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara contributed to this report.

By BENJAMIN HARVEY, Associated Press WriterWed Apr 18, 1:36 PM ET

I didn't know there were any Christians in North Korea. If Kim Jong Il gets his way, there won't be. Here's your weekend must-read, from World Magazine. Goes behind the firewall in a week or so, so get it while it's hot:

On both sides of the border, Dobbs heard horror stories from underground Christians about recent North Korean persecution. Executions and torture may occur in large part in North Korea's prison camp—the gulag holds an estimated 200,000 political prisoners—but they also happen in public. Dobbs gleaned one estimate that the regime kills 300 people a year for their faith. Other well-connected activists report arrests of Christians were higher last year than in 2005, with perhaps 50,000 believers languishing in prison.

Some examples of persecution that Dobbs learned about:

In one prison, a warden hung a Christian man upside down and ordered him to deny his beliefs. Eventually the warden stabbed at him and pushed him to the ground, ordering 6,000 prisoners to trample him to death.
Eight prisoners stayed silent when told to deny the existence of heaven, so an infuriated prison official ordered other inmates to pour molten iron over them.
Some reports say Christian prisoners are deliberately crippled so they cannot walk; others are left naked and so starved they eat the rats scampering in their prison cells raw.