AGCA OFFERS TO PERFORM A RESURRECTION FOR REAGAN AND U.N. CHIEF

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505100053-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 53
• Publication Date: June 25, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/23 :CIA-RDP90-005528000505100053-4
ARTICL$ ~PP~ED
ON PAGE
NEW YORK TIME
25 June 1985
Agca Offers to Perform a Resurrection or
Reagan and U.N. Chef
? $y ,IOHIV TA~LIABUE ~
Special W The New Yolk Times
ROME, June 24 - Mehmet Ali Agra,
the convicted assailant of Pope John
Paul II, returned to the witness stand
here today. offering new testimony and ;
c~r-tradictory versions of several '
events.
Mr. Agra, who is the state's key wit-
ness in the case against seven offier
men in a purported plot to assassinate
the Pope, also reiterated that he was
Jesus Christ and that he was prepared
to prove it by raising a body from the
dead in the presence of President Rea- ~
gan artq of Javier PBrez de Cuellar, the
Secretary General of the United IVa-
tion.4.
At one point, Mr. Agra, who is on
trial here with four other Turks and
three Bulgarians, said he had had con- -
tact in jail with members of the Red
Brigades, a terrorist group.
~ previ~ ti~monv he s ~d h~ was
and litical wro ~ . In -that
ear~estunony, r. gca said Mr.
Pazienza had urged him to implicate
Bulgaria in the shooting of the Pope.
Today's session underscored the task
the chief judge, Severino Saatiapichi,
faces in filtering truth from fantasy in
Mr. Agca's testimony.
The judge, in exploring details of the i
1981 shooting of the Pope, appeared an-
gered when Mr. Agra altered his posi. ~,
lion several times within minutes on
such points as the means -used by two
alleged accomplices, Oral Celik and
Omer Ay, to reach Rome; the'piaae
where Mr. Ay stayed in Rome; aM the.
kind of gun carried by Mr. Celik.
To Mr. Agca's remark that this was
"not a simple trial,"the judge replied:
' `This is not a simple trial becarrae
you are not simple. And if you compli-
cate it further, it will be even leas sim-
. The comment was regarded as ?sig- pls."
nificant because of charges that Mr. ~ , At that mt Mr. , ca said that he
Agra had been coached in jail` to impli- ( would "raise up s me man wla is
sate Bulgaria and the Soviet Union in ~ scientifically dead" in the prescace.oi`
the purported assassination plot. '
Under cross-exaesination about his i President Reagan and Mr. Pdrez . de ?_
stay in the Ascoli Piceno prison, north- ~ Cuellar, "provided the Vatican tells 4he
"
east of Rome, Mr. Agca said that from
June to December 1982 he occupied a
cell near Giovanni Senzani, who helped
mastermind the Red Brigades. The
period is crucial because it was then
that Mr: Agra reversed earlier testi-
mony that he had acted alone and
began to implicated Bulgarians.
Mr. Agra said Mr. Senzani and an-
other terrorist known to ~ltim only as
Giorgio taught him Itai#an and sup.
plied him with books and newspapers.
The Turk said he had souahaht a meet.
that he wool veal their com lici if
they noC-o tam re ease.
opes rom a roe ,from the
Gray Wolves, from the Bulgarians," he
said.
Pledge by Security Aides
Mr. Agca said the security offiMals
had assured him that "everyone could;
be pardoned, even the Bulgarians." He
denied that he had been coshed to im-
i plicate the Bulgarians or Est he tied)
been visited by other people while
.jailed in Ascoli Piceno.
absolute truth that I am Jesus Chest.
Mr. Agcy insisted that he was "not
crazy" and he threatened to cause the
"collapse of all Christendom and West-
ern civilization."
Some people in the courtroom said
Mr. Agcy seemed to be making these
bizarre statements to avoid telling the
truth; others said he appeared to make
them during a kind of seizure when
pressed to tell what he knows.
As on previous days, Judge Santi-
apichi questioned Mr. Agcy both about
i specific events surrounding the 1981
shooting and about his motives.
Judge Santiapichi questioned the
Turk about a "change in style" in his
letters and declarations from jail, in-
volving the increased use of radical Is-
lamicslogans refiectirrg nnti-Christian;
anti-Western positions often taken by
Turkish nationalists.
Mr. Agra said the slogans were
meant "in some way to express ideas I
had at the time," but also "to throw
people off the track" and "cover the
Bulgarian connection," which he only
later decided to reveal.
He said they were intended "to signal
to the Gray Wolves" to get him out of
P?'i~-
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/23 :CIA-RDP90-005528000505100053-4