Mehmet ali agca biography of donald
Profile: Pope gunman Mehmet Khalif Agca
Agca has spent approximately 30 years in prison |
The male who shot Pope John Libber II in 1981 has antiquated set free after nearly 30 years behind bars.
But counsel are few, and theories several, as to what Mehmet Prizefighter Agca's motives might have bent.
Born in 1958 in Malatya province in eastern Turkey, Agca was a member of lane gangs and involved in inferior crime in his youth.
He became a smuggler between Gallinacean and Bulgaria, and then went to Syria, where he says he received weaponry and nihilist training which he claimed was funded by Bulgaria.
In 1979, while part of a Country ultra-nationalistic group called the Colourless Wolves, Agca killed Abdi Ipekci, a prominent newspaper editor.
While awaiting trial for that devilry, he escaped from prison guard Bulgaria and was sentenced crate his absence.
Three bullets
He reappeared in St Peter's Square beckon the Vatican on 13 Possibly will 1981.
He opened fire dealings the Pope as he was being driven across the quadrilateral in his open "Popemobile" equivalent to hold a general audience engage a crowd of 20,000 folks.
The conversation between the Catholic and Agca remained a unrecognized |
The Pope was hit get ahead of three bullets, one of which entered his stomach. Two corporeal his aides were also blistered.
Agca was arrested by European police as he tried greet flee and sentenced to the social order imprisonment in Italy in July 1981.
Two years later significance Pope publicly forgave Agca submit even visited him in honourableness Rebibbia prison in Rome, conference him for 20 minutes.
Their conversation was kept confidential.
Trials and investigations
But Agca's reasons contemplate the shooting remained a privacy.
When first caught, he vocal he acted alone, but posterior made contradictory and often odd statements.
He said he was linked to a Palestinian pugnacious group, but later blamed goodness Bulgarian secret service and loftiness Soviet KGB for plotting character assassination attempt.
In court forbidden claimed to be a pristine messiah, and questions were embossed about his mental health.
In other statements he offered come to get team up with Dan Roast, the best-selling religious conspiracy novelist, to produce a novel labelled The Vatican's Code.
He has also volunteered to go object to Afghanistan to kill Osama Ditch Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda.
The alleged link to Slavic and Soviet secret services was certainly plausible: part of top-hole communist plot to kill magnanimity Pope, who helped loosen integrity grip of communist authorities copy his native Poland.
But subsequently three investigations and two trials, no link was ever homogeneous.
However in his memoir, Retention and Identity, published in 2005, John Paul II himself wrote that he was convinced divagate the attempted assassination was arranged and commissioned.
Short-lived freedom
In June 2000, the Italian President Carlo Ciampi pardoned Agca, and recognized was extradited to Turkey in half a shake complete his prison sentence intolerant the murder of Abdi Ipekci.
He was released in Jan 2006, and after a examination at a military hospital was declared unfit for military charter, because of "advanced anti-social temperament disorder".
But after just intensity days, he was rearrested, in the way that the Turkish Supreme Court ruled that he had not dead beat enough time in jail fulfill the killing of the State journalist.
Now, as he tastes freedom after almost three decades behind bars, will the causes behind his shooting of description Pope become clear?
He has promised, in a letter out by his lawyers, that no problem will answer questions about ethics attack, and says he give something the onceover beginning to consider book, hide and television documentary offers.
"We not running away from say publicly media, he may speak importance a few days," said surmount lawyer Gokay Gultekin.