Pope John Paul II's would-be assassin to be freed from Turkish prison

Published: 2006-01-09

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Turkish terrorist who shot and seriously wounded Pope John Paul II in a failed 1981 assassination attempt was scheduled to be freed on parole from a Turkish prison Jan. 12. Since his extradition from Italy to Turkey in 2000, Mehmet Ali Agca served five years of a 10-year sentence for the 1979 murder of a Turkish journalist and two robberies the same year. But a Turkish court said Agca had completed his prison term and could be released, according to reports by the country's semiofficial Anatolia news agency. Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, commenting on "the news of the possible freedom of Ali Agca" in a Jan. 8 press release, said the decision to release Agca should be up to the Turkish courts. Concerning issues of "a judicial nature," the Vatican "submits to the decisions of the tribunals involved in this matter," the statement said. Agca, 48, had served 19 years in an Italian prison for his May 13, 1981, assassination attempt on Pope John Paul in St. Peter's Square.

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