However, my gun caught on, and I could to thunder more against John Paul II and then commit suicide. If I had killed him, perhaps the Soviet one would not collapse empire, nor the fall of the Berlin Wall, says the Turk in front of Italian television 41 years after the attack on St. Peter’s Square
Exactly 41 years after Mehmet Ali Agca assassinated Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, the Turk told his current version of why he did so and denied having any accomplices. Years after the attack, there was talk of a Bulgarian trace in the case. In 1981, Sergei Antonov was arrested and tried for complicity in the attack on Pope John Paul II. Antonov spent more than four years in custody and was eventually acquitted by an Italian court for lack of evidence.
Now Andrea Purgatori, host of the Atlantis show on Italian TV channel La Sete, has gone to an Istanbul hotel to interview a Turk. Agca claims that he did everything himself, using the connections and opportunities of the far-right terrorist organization “Gray Wolves” for the logistics of the attack.
But how Agca reaches the realization mu
“In 1976 I was at the university. “I was among the Gray Wolves, but to use their connections and opportunities, because you can’t fight alone,” he explains. According to him, their idol at the time was Carlos the Jackal. “It was a myth.”
“The Gray Wolves were a movement on the right, but revolutionary – Nazis, fascists … If I were in Europe, I would probably be a socialist or a communist, but the left in Turkey is different, and it is corrupt,” Agca said. So he chose to be on the right.
Were there any infiltrated people from the secret services among the “Gray Wolves”? “Certainly from the CIA, it is maneuvering the right to stop the Communists and their ability to revolution.” And did he know people from the KGB or the CIA? “Whatever I say now will have no value …” Agca replied evasively.
At one point, he was “involved” in the murder of the editor-in-chief of the Milliyet newspaper, went to prison, but escaped. How is it possible, given that this is an extremely high-security prison?
“It was not so difficult, three communists had escaped from there. It was possible to escape with the complicity of the administration and security. I ran away with a pistol in my pocket. I was ready to kill and then shoot myself. I wanted to run away, so I found people to help me.
They helped me from The Gray Wolves
I went to Iran, came back, then to Bulgaria, “said the Turk.
However, the idea to kill his pope came in prison. “I had already prepared my escape. Then I read in the newspaper that the Pope would come to Turkey. In November 1979, I wrote the famous letter, which was published in the Milliyet newspaper.
In fact, four days before Pope John Paul II arrived in Turkey, Agca escaped from prison. A day later, he wrote a letter to Milliyet, the same newspaper whose murder its editor-in-chief was accused of. He threatens that the Christian religious leader should not go to Turkey and that if he does, he will kill him.
“The project to kill the pope was mine, it cannot be explained … However, there were a series of coincidences. I wanted to escape from prison, and that’s when the pope would arrive. “
And why did he want to kill the Pope, asks the Italian journalist.
“When I arrived in Europe, I had nothing to do. I had to live – to rob a bank … I had as a program to kill the UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, Queen Elizabeth … Then I came to Italy “, explains the Turk.
However, does Purgatory ask if anyone is directing Agca to assassinate the pope, considering whether someone’s secret services have suggested this idea.
“I am myself secret service
Of course, someone from the Gray Wolves helped me, says Agca, without giving details. Asked by a journalist if there were people from the services among them, Agca replied that he must have been the head of the Gray Wolves newspaper.
“He was a CIA man, he is now in prison for the failed assassination attempt on Erdogan.”
Does anyone tell him to shoot at the Pope, the journalist insists. “No, I decided to use the possibilities of the” Gray Wolves “myself … There are historical data, dozens of documents that the KGB had decided that if necessary, it could kill the Polish pope. But that doesn’t mean they came to kill the pope. It is already known that
the pope was elected with with the help of America, for to destroy the Soviet empire … ”,
the Turk thinks.
Agca traveled to 12 countries, went to Austria to get a gun, and returned to Italy. How is it possible for him to travel freely in Europe when he is wanted after escaping from a Turkish prison? “At that time, all borders in Europe were open,” the Turk replied. That’s how he arrived in Rome.
“On the morning of May 13, I woke up thinking it was my last day. I was in a hotel whose name in Turkish was translated as Jesus. I said to myself – how amazing it is that I am in the Jesus Hotel and that I am preparing to kill his deputy on earth. At 5 pm I went to St. Peter’s Square. I was alone. It is a legend that there were other … (laughing.) When the Pope made the first tour, I said to myself that he would probably not return.
Was there another armed man, as Agca himself had said earlier, and that they should signal to him?
“It was said … International politics wanted to invent a conspiracy in the Soviet era. And that man alone cannot do such a thing. I said earlier that there was another,
because had to build a plot
However, it is no longer necessary for anyone to talk about conspiracies, because the Soviet empire has already collapsed. “
According to a Turk, after the pope took a girl in his arms in the square, he told himself that he would probably not be able to shoot. “I waited for him to leave the child and then I shot twice. Two shots. ”
But three shots are heard, and according to audio experts, there are even more. “This is scientifically impossible,” Agca said.
“There is no third shot. Sister Lucia of the Vatican stopped me. He was blocking me, at that moment I thought he was a policeman. There is another nun from Fatima, who is called Sister Lucia. I didn’t know Fatima’s secret then.
I fired twice and the gun hit. If he hadn’t spotted, I could have shot at the Pope and then killed myself. It is inexplicable that the gun was detected, “the bomber added.
After his arrest, he was interrogated for eight days. “Then they told me that the pope had forgiven me, I couldn’t believe it. This is something huge, unheard of – 22 minutes of conversation with the Pope. He told me that he had forgiven me, that he was praying for me, and that this conversation was requested by God. He didn’t ask me why I did it. I told myself that this was a conversation requested by God and that I should behave in a dignified manner, so I kissed the Pope’s hand. “
Does he realize that if he had killed the pope, history would have changed?
“Yes, maybe the Soviet empire would not collapse, and the Berlin Wall would not fall …”
How does Agca, who went down in history, feel like the man who failed to do what he wanted to do, Andrea Purgatori asks?
“In this situation, for me, all this remains as a small thing, as a small detail that I have already overcome, because I am already looking to a future that neither Elon Musk nor Bill Gates can imagine. 2000 years ago Jesus preached it – this is the kingdom of God, where there is immortality, wealth, glory … So all these things seem primitive to me. “
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