Man who shot Pope John Paul II to be released

THE Turk who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981 will be released from prison on Thursday, but he then may be tried in a military court for allegedly dodging the draft and escaping military custody, an official said yesterday.

A Turkish court decided last week to free Mehmet Ali Agca, 47, on parole, saying he had completed his prison term for crimes committed in Turkey. Agca was extradited to Turkey in 2000 after serving almost 20 years in an Italian prison for shooting and wounding John Paul in St. Peter’s Square in Rome on May 13, 1981.

His motive for shooting the pope in the abdomen remains unclear.

Agca’s lawyer told The Associated Press yesterday that his client was looking forward to his impending release.

“He is very, very happy,” Mustafa Demirbag said. “He has no plans for the future for now, but he is looking forward to his freedom.”

Demirbag said Agca would likely be taken to a military station following his release and then to a military hospital in Istanbul for medical checks, a routine procedure.

However, it was not clear if he will be enlisted in the army, which generally accepts conscripts until 41.

But an official said Agca might even be taken to a military court for dodging the draft and escaping from a military prison in 1979. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

In Warsaw, Poland, John Paul II’s former private secretary, who held the wounded pope in his arms after he was shot in 1981, accepted the court’s decision to release Agca and was praying for him, his spokesman said.

“John Paul II pardoned Ali Agca a long time ago,” Krakow Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz said, through his spokesman, the Rev. Robert Necek. “The decision to release him belongs to the justice system in Ankara.

“Now John Paul II is praying for him in heaven and I am praying also,” Necek quoted Dziwisz, who served as John Paul’s closest aide for more than 40 years until the pontiff’s death in April, as saying.

Dziwisz also has “forgiven him in his heart,” Necek said.

John Paul II met with Agca in Italy’s Rebibbia prison in 1983 and forgave him for the shooting.

Demirbag said he was touched by the Vatican statement.

“On behalf of my client I want to thank the Vatican. We were pleased by the statement,” he said.

On Sunday, Demirbag said he had known about the court’s decision, but was keeping it a secret.

Demirbag, explaining the court decision, said Agca was sentenced to life in prison, which amounts to 36 years under Turkish law, for murdering Turkish journalist Abdi Ipekci in 1979.