BULGARIA SAYS DEFECTOR WAS ONLY A MECHANIC

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404090006-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: March 24, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000404090006-0
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NEW YORK TIMES
24 MARCH 1983
Bulgaria Says Defector
Was Only a Mechanic
ROME, March 23 (Reuters) - The
Bulgarian Embassy in Rome said today
that a Bulgarian defector, reported to
have said his country was behind a plot
to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981, was
neither a diplomat nor a secret agent. It
added that the defector's allegations
about Bulgarian involvement in any
such plot should be reconsidered in this
light.
An embassy spokesman, Vassili
uug ZtII a report
today in The New York Times, said the
defector, lordan Mantarov, was in
France "as a maintenance mechanic of
the Bulgarian firm Agro?Mascina_
Impex" before he defected in 1981.
"Hence he was neither a dilomat nor a
secret agent," the spokesman said.
The report in The Times said Mr.
Mantarov was deputy commercial
'attache at the Bulgarian Embassy in
Paris before his defection and had told
the French internal counterespionage
service about the purported Bulgarian
link. The spokesman said Mr. Mantaro'.
had "probably decided to use for his
own purposes" the Italian judicial in-
14uiry into purported Bulgarian contacts
with Mehmet All Agca, the Turk con-
victed of shooting the pope.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000404090006-0