Several theories exist concerning Ağca's assassination attempt. Motivations for the assassination attempt In early February 2005, during the Pope's illness, Ağca sent a letter to the Pope wishing him well. The Pope was also in touch with Ağca's family over the years, meeting his mother in 1987 and his brother, Muezzin Ağca, a decade later.Īlthough Ağca was quoted as saying that 'to me was the incarnation of all that is capitalism', and attempted to murder him, Ağca developed a friendship with the pontiff. Ağca reportedly kissed the Pope's ring at the conclusion of their visit some mistakenly thought the Pope was hearing Ağca's confession. whom I have sincerely forgiven.' In 1983, he and Ağca met and spoke privately at Rome's Rebibbia Prison, where Ağca was being held. Relationship with Pope John Paul II įollowing the shooting, Pope John Paul II asked people to 'pray for my brother. Ağca was released from prison on 18 January 2010, after almost 29 years behind bars. However, on 20 January 2006, the Turkish Supreme Court ruled that his time served in Italy could not be deducted from his Turkish sentence and he was returned to jail. Nonetheless he was released on parole on 12 January 2006. Despite a plea for early release in November 2004, a Turkish court announced that he would not be eligible for release until 2010. He was then extradited to Turkey, where he was imprisoned for the 1979 murder of left-wing journalist Abdi İpekçi and two bank raids carried out in the 1970s. Çelik panicked and fled without setting off his bomb or opening fire.Īğca was sentenced in July 1981 to life imprisonment for the assassination attempt, but was pardoned by Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi in June 2000 at the Pope's request. The Pope was immediately rushed to the hospital while the authorities combed the site for evidence. All four bullets hit John Paul II two of them lodged in his lower intestine while the other two hit his left index finger and right arm and also injured two bystanders: Ann Odre, of Buffalo, New York, was struck in the chest, and Rose Hall was slightly wounded in the arm.

He fled the scene as the crowd was in shock and disposed of the pistol by throwing it under a truck, but was grabbed by Vatican security chief Camillo Cibin, a nun, and several spectators who prevented him from firing more shots or escaping, and he was arrested. When the Pope passed through a crowd of supporters, Ağca fired four shots at 17:17 with a 9mm Browning Hi-Power semi-automatic pistol, and critically wounded him. On 13 May, they sat in the square, writing postcards and waiting for the Pope to arrive. Peter's Square and escape to the Bulgarian embassy under the cover of the panic generated by a small explosion. According to Ağca, the plan was for him and the back-up gunman Oral Çelik to open fire on the pope in St.

He said that he was assigned this mission by Turkish mafioso Bekir Çelenk in Bulgaria. According to Ağca's later testimony, he met with three accomplices in Rome, one a fellow Turk and two Bulgarians, with the operation being commanded by Zilo Vassilev, the Bulgarian military attaché in Italy. He entered Rome on, coming by train from Milan. īeginning in August 1980, Ağca, under the alias of Vilperi, began criss-crossing the Mediterranean region, changing passports and identities, perhaps to hide his point of origin in Sofia, Bulgaria. The paper also said (on 28 November 1979) that the killing would be in revenge for the then still ongoing attack on the Grand Mosque in Mecca, which had begun on 20 November, and which he blamed on the United States or Israel. In 1979 The New York Times reported that Agca, whom it called 'the self-confessed killer of an Istanbul newspaperman' ( Abdi İpekçi, editor of the Turkish newspaper Milliyet), had described the Pope as 'the masked leader of the crusades' and threatened to shoot him if he did not cancel his planned visit to Turkey, which went ahead in late November 1979. This vehicle is now in the Vatican Museums. The Fiat Popemobile in which Pope John Paul II was riding at the time of the attempted assassination.

Point blank kills cold war