Mehmet Ali Agca: Pope is in DANGER

[Nictoshek]

Pope John Paul II with his would-be assasin, Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca 1983.

Benedict's in danger, says Pope shooter

The man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981 has warned Pope Benedict XVI, whose remarks enraged Muslims last week, not to visit the predominantly Muslim Turkey in November, saying the pontiff's life could be in danger, the gunman's lawyer said.

"As a man who knows these things, I am saying that your life is in danger, don't come to Turkey. I can't welcome you because I'm in prison," lawyer Mustafa Demirbag quoted Mehmet Ali Agca as saying.

The lawyer said Agca made his statement during a meeting at the high-security Kartal prison in Istanbul on Monday.

Demirbag said he would visit the gunman again tomorrow and was expecting his client to make further statements.

Benedict XVI said that he has "deep respect" for Islam but did not offer an apology as demanded by some Muslim leaders offended by the pontiff's remarks in Germany last week.

During his speech, the pontiff cited a Medieval text that characterised some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as "evil and inhuman," particularly "his command to spread by the sword the faith."

Secular Turkey's ruling Islamic-rooted government accused him of trying to revive the spirit of the Crusades and called on the pontiff to offer a sincere and personal apology.

"Either apologise, or do not come," read a banner carried by dozens of protesters from a religious workers' union in Ankara yesterday - a sign many Muslims feel Benedict's expression of regret on Sunday was insufficient.

Agca speculated in a hand-written letter faxed to the Associated Press by his lawyer that the Pope was pressured by secret services to make such a statement.

Agca called on Benedict to step down as pope and return to Germany for a peaceful life.

There have long been questions about Agca's mental health. He fired on John Paul as the pontiff rode in an open car in St Peter's Square on May 13, 1981.

John Paul died last year and was replaced by Benedict XVI.

When asked by Turkish police earlier this year where he obtained the gun he used in his assassination attempt, Agca said: "These are minor details. It was written in my destiny 1,000 years ago. I fulfilled a mission that was written 1,000 years ago. I would shoot the Pope even if he was on the moon," Turkey's Hurriyet and Zaman newspapers quoted him as saying at the time.

John Paul was wounded but recovered. The Pope visited his attacker and forgave him in his Rome prison cell in 1983.

In January, Agca was released by mistake and was sent back to prison on January 20, eight days after being freed.

An appeals court ruled he had to serve more time for killing a prominent Turkish journalist, Abdi Ipekci, in 1979, and reversed a lower court ruling that had allowed him to be freed.

AP

[pieter]

Nictoe,

I don't like the present Pope, and think John Paul the Second was a better Pope
in bringing religions and faiths closer together!

When I see him I see a hidden agenda! I remember him as Cardinal Joseph Alois Ratzinger,
the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, one of the most important
offices of the Roman Curia. The follow up of the Inquisition.

I prefered another pope who would unite Catholics instaid of deviding them in an
orhtodox ultra-conservative branch and a liberal moderate branch.

He is the head of the church and a religion of 1 billion people, so he should
refrain from political statements like about the Islam! Leave that to politicians.
It damaged work done by the previous pope to built bridges between differant
faiths and cultures!

Pieter

P.S.- I hope he doesn't visit Turkey! There are nearly no Catholics or christians
there. So what's the use?

[Nictoshek]

Well you have to admit, that the former Hitler youth is a tough German Shepherd.

[Nictoshek]

Man Who Shot Pope in 1981 Is Freed

By SEBNEM ARSU
January 19, 2010

ISTANBUL, Turkey — Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish man who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II in 1981, was released from a Turkish prison on Monday proclaiming that he was “the Christ eternal” after serving jail terms totaling 29 years.

Under heavy guard and with his car flanked by a huge convoy of reporters and television crews, Mr. Agca, 52, was driven to a Turkish military hospital to be assessed for military service, which is compulsory in Turkey.

Wearing a blue sweater, Mr. Agca looked tense in images taken by photographers through the darkened windows of his car.

Mr. Agca shot the pope on May 13, 1981, in St. Peter’s Square, wounding him in the stomach, left hand and right arm. Two years later, the pope visited Mr. Agca in a an Italian prison and offered forgiveness.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Monday he had no comment on the freeing of Mr. Agca.

With his release from prison — he served 10 years in Turkey after 19 years imprisonment in Italy — Mr. Agca is reported to be considering an array of multi-million dollar offers to tell his story. But there have long been questions about his mental condition.

Gokayi Gultekin, Mr. Agca’s lawyer, said in a telephone interview before his release that Mr. Agca had already been found unfit for military service because of his “severe anti-social character.”

In a statement made public outside the prison at Sincan on the outskirts of Ankara on Monday, Mr. Agca declared: “I proclaim the end of the world. All the world will be destroyed in this century. Every human being will die in this century.”

“I am the Christ eternal,” the statement said. “The gospel is full of mistakes, I will write the perfect gospel.”

His motives for opening fire on John Paul II have remained opaque.

He was arrested immediately after attacking the pope, and at one stage he suggested that the K.G.B. and Bulgarian intelligence were involved in the assault, but he later reversed those claims.

Before the shooting, Mr. Agca had been affiliated with right-wing groups in Turkey. In 1979, he was convicted of murdering Abdi Ipekci, a leading Turkish newspaper editor, but he soon escaped from a high-security military prison. The fact that he was able to simply walk out wearing a private’s uniform inspired suggestions that high-level connections were helping him.

Mr. Agca initially confessed to killing Mr. Ipekci but then said he had not.

He was extradited to Turkey in 2000 from Italy to complete his sentence for murdering Mr. Ipekci.

His legal position has been so convoluted that he was freed from prison by mistake in 2006 and sent back to jail eight days later, The A.P. said.

Although he has never admitted any association with any group during his years in jail, he has been linked to the Turkish ultranationalist group called the Gray Wolves.

Some Turks expressed doubts about the likelihood of Mr. Agca offering a clear account of what happened in 1981.

Hayri Kozakcioglu, who, as head of the Istanbul security forces, interrogated him in 1979, told NTV television: “He wrote scenarios, created personalities on a daily basis to distort events; therefore I cannot see a reason to believe what he says now.”

Rachel Donadio contributed reporting from Rome.