Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981, is expected to sell his story to the media following his release from prison today after serving nearly thirty years.
However hopes that he will finally reveal the truth about the plot behind the attack appeared to fade after he issued a statement released through his lawyers calling himself “The Christ Eternal”, reinforcing doubts about his mental state.
The former gunman, who prayed with John Paul in his Italian prison cell after the attack failed and later converted to Christianity, said “I proclaim the end of the world. All the world will be destroyed in this century. Every human being will die in this century. The Gospel is full of mistakes. I will write the perfect Gospel.”
The Vatican declined to comment on the release. Agca, now a greying 52-year-old, punched his fist in the air as he was driven from a high-security prison at Sincan near Ankara and taken to a military hospital for a check-up to determine his fitness for Turkey’s compulsory military service.
Agca’s lawyer, Haci Ali Ozhan, claimed his client was “in shock and insists he cannot even hold a weapon because of his religious and philosophical convictions.” He said the military hospital doctors had confirmed a 2006 medical report declared him unfit for military service because of a “severe anti-social personality disorder”.
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Agca claimed to be the Messiah at his trial and has since repeatedly made bizarre and rambling statements. However it has never been clear whether he is mentally unstable or merely acting.
He was arrested minutes after the attack, and initially claimed that he had acted alone. He later indicated that Bulgarian agents acting on behalf of Moscow were behind the attack, but then withdrew this.
Italian magistrates who investigated the attack remain convinced that there was a Soviet plot, arising from Moscow’s fears that an anti-communist revolt in his native Poland would bring down the entire Soviet system.
In 1986 an Italian jury acquitted six defendants — three Bulgarians and three Turks — accused of involvement in the plot for lack of evidence.
Agca was a 23-year-old member of the extremist Far Right Turkish organisation the “Grey Wolves” when he shot the Pope in the abdomen on St Peter’s Square on May 13 1981. Two years earlier he had been arrested for the murder of Abdi Ipekci, a Turkish liberal newspaper editor, but escaped from jail and made his way to Italy.
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After being convicted of the papal assassination attempt Agca served 19 years in an Italian prison. He was pardoned in 2000 and extradited to Turkey, where he was re-arrested and given a ten-year sentence for his previous offences including murder and armed robbery.
Agca’s lawyer said over 50 foreign publishers and documentary makers had offered to buy his story. He would spend the night at the Sheraton Hotel in Ankara before deciding on his next move.
He is reported to hope that a Hollwyood film will be made of his life, and has said he intends to travel to Rome to pay his respects at the tomb of John Paul II.
The left-wing paper L’Unita said both Agca himself and his assassination attempt remained “a mystery” 30 years on, as did his contacts with Italian organised crime in the run up to the attack on the Pope.
“After his endless accounts and retractions, it appears to be useless to ask him to shed light on what really happened” the paper said.”