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Associated Press Photo 13 May 1981

The man who shot the most colorful pope ever we had, Pope John Paul II, Ali Agca is realesed from Turkish prison.
report form BBC:

The Pope was quick to forgive his assailant, visiting him in prison in 1983 and talking to him for 20 minutes. But he insisted their conversation would remain secret.

The Pope later described Agca as a trained assassin who could not have been acting alone; but he also believed that both the attempt on his life and his survival were due to divine intervention.


  This, together with the many bizarre claims made by Agca, mean his real story will probably never be known. For a man who may still have many dangerous enemies, that could be his best protection
 
He donated the bullet recovered from his abdomen to the shrine in Fatima, Portugal, where he believed the shooting had been foretold by the Virgin Mary to three local girls in 1917.

Agca had also referred to that prophesy during his trial.

The Pope's intervention led to Agca being pardoned in 2000, and sent back to Turkey, where his death sentence had been commuted to 10 years in prison.

He served the rest of the sentence, despite a moment of confusion in 2006 when he was briefly released, and then imprisoned again on the orders of the Turkish Supreme Court.

He has continued to issue outlandish statements right up to his release, claiming to be a new messiah and predicting the end of the world.

So is he delusional? Not according to those who have spent any time with him. Journalist Mehmet Ali Birand met him three times in his Italian jail cell.

"He's a balanced guy, he was in control of the situation, in control of himself, but full of conspiracy theories.

"The impression I got was he was doing this deliberately. He liked playing with the media. He wants to cash in - he believes that if it had not been the Pope, he would not have stayed in prison so long."

Cashing in is certainly a possibility. Agca's lawyers say he has been offered up to $3m (2.1m euros, £1.8m) by publishers for exclusive rights to his story. But it is still unclear whether that story will have any credibility.

The Grey Wolves group, with which he was associated at the time of the shooting, was linked to an underground network known as Gladio.

This was set up with CIA support in a number of European countries during the Cold War to prepare resistance to a possible Soviet invasion.

In both Italy and Turkey, Gladio networks are believed to have been behind numerous bombings and assassinations.

In Italy, the networks have been exposed and dismantled; in Turkey, they are still widely believed to exist as a so-called "deep state", with support from elements of the military.

The period of Turkey's history just prior to the 1980 military coup is still shrouded in confusion. At the time, the country was in chaos. Groups, both left and right, fought each other, with the alleged involvement of mafia groups and the security forces.

This, together with the many bizarre claims made by Agca, mean his real story will probably never be known. For a man who may still have many dangerous enemies, that could be his best protection.




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