http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/04/05/pope.attacker.reut/index.html
Attacker barred from funeral
Tuesday, April 5, 2005 Posted: 1:41 PM EDT (1741 GMT)
ISTANBUL, Turkey (Reuters) -- Turkish authorities have rejected a request
from Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who shot and gravely wounded Pope John Paul
in 1981, to leave prison to attend the pontiff's funeral, his lawyer said.
The pope forgave his would-be killer two years after the shooting that
would
mark the start of his slow decline in health.
"Our application was denied. It appears to have been a government
initiative. We don't have enough time before the funeral to appeal," Agca's
lawyer Mustafa Demirdag told Reuters.
"Mehmet Ali will be very sad when he learns this."
Agca, 47, is in a maximum security prison in Istanbul, having been
extradited for murder and robbery after serving 19 years in Italy for the
assassination attempt.
Italian authorities pardoned him at the pope's behest in 2000.
Agca had applied on Tuesday for a short compassionate release, which
Turkish
law allows for some prisoners, usually so that they can attend the funerals
of family members.
"I have lost my spiritual brother. I share in the mourning of my Christian
Catholic people," Agca wrote in a rambling "open letter to the world," in
which he also repeated his claim to be the "second messiah."
Agca's family members may still attend the funeral on Friday, Demirdag
said.
The pope had received Agca's brother and mother at the Vatican over the
years.
Agca shot the pope in the abdomen during a general audience in St. Peter's
Square on the anniversary of the 1917 apparition of Jesus' mother, the
Virgin Mary, near Fatima in Portugal.
The pope said he believed the Virgin Mary had intervened to save his life.
Agca has over the years insisted this made him part of a divine plan, which
the Vatican has rejected.
"The divine plan has reached its conclusion. So we are at the end of the
world," Agca wrote in the letter. He also said he was rewriting the Bible
and would soon reveal "Fatima's secret."
Over the years, Agca has given conflicting reasons for his attempt on John
Paul's life, including allegations of a conspiracy with Bulgaria's
communist-era secret services and the Soviet KGB.
Agca belonged to a right-wing militant faction in Turkey in the late 1970s
and was sentenced to prison for the 1979 murder of a liberal newspaper
editor.
A year before traveling to Rome, he escaped from jail with suspected help
from right-wing sympathizers in the Turkish security apparatus.
Turkish authorities have always denied any connection with Agca and have
dismissed him as mentally unstable.
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Scientology crooks: http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/otiii-gif.html
Scientology murder: http://PerkinsTragedy.org
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http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/extremists/ricef.html
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