AGCA STORY DEVELOPS NEW TWISTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505100057-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 57
• Publication Date: June 20, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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ca Stor
y
Develo s
p
New Twists
He Says 2 Turks Saw
Him- Shoot the Pope
By Michael Dobbs
Washington Poet Foreign Service
~~IASHIiVGTOV POST
20 June 1985
Agca's acknowledgment that
three Turks were in St. Peter's
Square on the day of the shooting
was not volunteered but came when
he was under strong pressure from
the judge to explain photographic
and other evidence that appeared to
contradict his earlier assertions.
The papal assailant, who has said
that he was accompanied to the
square by Bulgarian secret agents,
had revealed in December 1982
that a Turkish right-wing terrorist,
Oral Celik, was also present.
As late as yesterday, Agca in-
sisted that Celik had been the only
other Turk present despite photo-
graphs showing himself and two
other dark-haired men glancing at
each other at the moment of the
shooting.
However, unlike Agca's state-
ment about the 6hird Turk-which
was almost dragged out of him-
the pope's assailant volunteered the
information about Pazienza at the
'end of today's session. Scarcely
known abroad, Pazienza has
achieved enormous notoriety in
Italy, with his name being linked to
many of the major scandals that
have shaken this country over the
past five years.
Described as a fixer and social
slim r w o a e m es ionage,
Pazienza is now on trig m ome to
absentia on char es o ongmg to
a conspiratorial right-win action
that mani ulated Italian m;: nary
intelligence m t e pen
he group, which was known by the
code name uper- , is a ege to
have tam ~ered with invesh aligns
into terrorist crimes and to lave
used the resources o t e secret
secv~ce for their own ends.
Testifying today, gca disputed
reports in the Soviet Bloc media
that he had been fed information
about his alleged Bulgarian accom-
plices. He said that implicating the
Bulgarian defendants had been his
own idea.
"Nobody suggested anything to
me," he added. "However, I did meet
with Francesco Pazienza, who asked
me to collaborate. He had something
to do with an embassy and said he
was a friend of [Libyan leader]
Muammar Qaddafi. He promised me
liberty and a French passport. Now
he is in an American jail. The person
who promised me my freedom can-
not even free himself."
Asked
ing with ra~zr~rsz~-t pace, gca
replied: "Between March and April
1982" at the Ascoli Piceno prison,
where Agca was sent in July 1981.
After initially insisting that he
had acted alone in shooting the
pope, Agca began implicating the
Bulgarian secret service in the pa-
pal plot in May 1982, but not until
rate October 1982 did he identify
the three Bulgarian defendants as
his alleged accomplices.
Agca has disputed statements by
G~ovanm an co, an t mo
ster an ormer uunate of Ascoli
ceno o turns state s evidence
t at to an m to inte ~ ence
use t e ma is to pressure him into
-IIegmg a I~uTg-ar~an connection o
the a I lot.
o ay s a mission by the papal
assailant that a third Turkish gun-
man was in the square. came after
the judge read out portions of tes-
timony from a Turldsb rightist, Yal-
cin Ozbey, now imprisoned in West
Germany on drug-smuggling
charges. Interrogated by Italian
magistrates in February 19$4,
Ozbey said that four Turks had ta-
ken part in the assassination at-
tempt.
"There was a third man," Agca
blurted out suddenly after intense
questioning today by Judge
Severing Santiapichi.
Pressed to describe the "third
man," Agca said he was a member
of the right-wing terrorist group
known as the Gray Wolves and
came from his hometown of Mala-
tya in eastern Turkey. He said he
was between 5 feet ?and 5 feet
8~/z, thinly built, with black hair,
black eyes, and between 25 and 28
years old.
As excitement mounted in the
converted gymnasium, Agca was
handed a photograph taken at the
moment of the shooting, on which
he circled a man he called "Akif,"
evidently a pseudonym. The man in
the photo is appazently looking to-
ward Agca who is holding a gun in
his right hand pointed toward the
PoPe?
But Agca, despite a plea by San-
tiapichi to tell the truth about
"Akif," refused to identify the figure
in the photo by any other name.
Last year, Ozbey identified "AkiP
as a left-wing Turkish terrorist
named Sedat Sim Kadem who, he
said.. had links with the Bulgarian
ROME, June 19-In a day of ma-
jor new revelations in the papal con-
spiracy trial here, Turkish gumnatt
Mehmet Ali Agca testified today for
the first time that a third Turkish
conspirator was with him in St. Pe-
ter's Square in Rome in May 1981
when he shot Pope John Paul II.
Agca also stated that a mysteri-
ous underworld figure with links to
the Italian secret service had of-
fered him his freedom if he coop-
erated with the Italian authorities.
He named the alleged go-between
as Francesco Pazienza, who was
arrested in New York on Mazch 4
and is wanted in .Italy for crimes
ranging from fraud to corruption of
the secret services.
Agca's latest revelations drew
gasps of astonishment from a court-
room that has almost become accus-
tomed to sensational developments
and daily changes in testimony by the
prosecution's star witness.
Since 'the trial opened almost four
weeks ago, the pope's would-be as-
sassin has managed to implicate
both the Soviet Union and aright-
wing Italian Masonic lodge in the
affair while asserting repeatedly
that he is Jesus Christ. t
In addition to Agca, the defen-
dants now on trial are three former
Bulgarian officials in Rome and four
Turks who are accused of acting as
his accomplices. An Italian state
prosecutor has linked the assassi-
nation attempt to the 1Sremlia's
need to suppress poetical and social
upheavals in the pope's native Po-
land in the years 1980-81.
~inued
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/23 :CIA-RDP90-005528000505100057-0