Turkish man who shot Pope John Paul set to be freed

Pope John Paul meeting with his would-be assassin, Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca, in a cell of Rome's Rebibbia prison in this December 27, 1983 file photo. Picture / Reuters

ISTANBUL - The man who tried to kill Pope John Paul II a quarter of a century ago is expected to be freed from an Istanbul jail tomorrow but may be immediately claimed by the Turkish army for missed military service.

Mehmet Ali Agca spent 19 years in an Italian prison for his 1981 assassination bid, but was freed in 2000 after a pardon at the late Pope's behest. He was then extradited to Turkey to serve a separate sentence for robbery and murder.

"I will go to the prison tomorrow morning to get Agca," lawyer Mustafa Demirbag said today. "After the legal procedures are complete, I will go with him to the military recruitment office."

Under new Turkish laws, his time served in Italy was deducted from the 25 years left on his sentence in Turkey for the 1979 murder of a liberal newspaper editor, Abdi Ipekci.

All Turkish adult males have to serve 15 months in the military, with reductions for university graduates or those Turks living abroad.

But Agca's lawyer was confident his client would escape having to do his military service.

"In normal circumstances, he must be taken to the recruitment office," Demirbag said. "But we will use all our legal rights; such as his advanced age and his medical condition."

Agca, 48, could face threats to his life because of the secrets he knows, according to an Italian ex-magistrate who probed the 1981 attempt on the Pope's life.

"I think the Turkish government should guarantee Agca's security because he knows so many secrets and he may be killed," Ferdinando Imposimato said in an interview in Rome.

"The best thing would be to keep him in jail," he said.

Imposimato said he was convinced the former Soviet KGB was behind one of the most notorious assassination attempts of the 20th century and that secret services were hiding the truth.

Agca has given conflicting reasons why he shot the Pope in Rome's St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981.

At a 1986 trial, prosecutors failed to prove charges that Bulgarian secret services had hired Agca to kill the Pope on behalf of the Soviet Union which, they said, feared the Pontiff would stir anti-communist revolt.

The so-called "Bulgarian Connection" trial ended with an "acquittal for lack of sufficient evidence" of three Turks and three Bulgarians charged with conspiring along with Agca.

During a visit to Sofia in 2002, the Polish-born Pontiff, who is credited by historians with helping bring the collapse of communism in eastern Europe in 1989, said he "never believed in the so-called Bulgarian connection" in the attempt on his life.

John Paul died last year aged 84.

- REUTERS