Pope gunman must stay in prison until 2010

Turkish prosecutors today ruled that the man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981 must stay in prison until the beginning of 2010, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Mehmet Ali Agca was returned on Friday to the high-security Kartal Prison, the same prison he was released from eight days ago, after a court ruled he had more time to serve on his sentence for killing a prominent Turkish journalist in 1979 and other crimes.

A panel of prosecutors today said the gunman would remain in prison until January 18, 2010.

Justice Minister Cemil Cicek, responding to widespread criticism of the gunman’s release, had asked an appeals court to review the case and the court ruled on Friday that the gunman’s release was a mistake.

Agca had served 19 years in an Italian prison for shooting the Pope and then five and a half years of a 10-year sentence in Turkey for murdering journalist Abdi Ipekci.

Agca had also separately served some five months for killing the journalist back in 1979, before escaping from a prison. He was also convicted in 2000 for a factory robbery and vehicle theft.