THE BULGARIAN CONNECTION STILL HOLDS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201340001-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 10, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: February 12, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201340001-4
WALL STREET JOURNAL
12 February 1986
The Bulgarian Connection Still Holds
By GORDON CROVITZ
The trial of seven Bulgarians and Turks
accused of helping Mehmet All Agca try to
kill the pope is in its final phase, with pros-
ecutor Antonio Marini this week summing
up his evidence of a conspiracy. His proof
includes Agca's admission that the Bul-
garians paid him for the shooting, circum-
stantial evidence that Bulgarian agents in
Rome planned the shooting and corroborat-
ing evidence by members of the Turkish-
Bulgarian smuggling mafia.
Mr. Marini emphasizes that proof of the
plot comes "independently of Agca's state-
ments." Italian courts do give weight to
kinds of evidence American courts do not.
which is one reason they have successfully
prosecuted terrorists. Mr. Marini urged
the jury of judges and laymen not to be
confused by the "falsehoods, scheming and
conniving" that marked the seven-month
trial. Agca, he said, "put himself on the
market as a potential assassin of the pope
and somebody enlisted him as a courier of
death."
The prosecutor offered his own explana-
tion of Agca's confusing antics during the
trial. He argued that at the beginning of
the trial, Agca claimed to be Christ and
predicted the end of the world to give the
Bulgarians time to somehow rescue him.
Earlier, Agca had confused his testimony
following the June 1983 kidnapping of the
daughter of a Vatican employee and subse-
quent ransom notes demanding Agca's re-
lease, which convinced him that the Bul-
garians were still trying to spring him. Mr.
Marini quoted Agca as saying that his ac-
complices "wanted me to retract my accu-
sations against them, confound the trial,
and then I had the task of discrediting the
Western press," which had connected the
shooting with Bulgaria and the Soviet Un-
ion. Now, according to Mr. Marini, Agca
says: "I failed, certainly, and I want to
abandon this double game."
Proclaims Its Innocence
Mr. Marini will announce later this
week whether he believes there is enough
evidence to convict the three Bulgarians
and four Turks. Under the Italian system
he could ask for acquittal or dismissal for
lack of evidence, but his aggressive sum-
mation suggests he will ask for a full con-
viction.
Meanwhile, the Soviet Bloc continues to
proclaim its innocence. Just after the May
1981 shooting, Soviet publications claimed
Agca was an anti-Christian fanatic acting
alone. Then they claimed he was a fascist
working for the Grey Wolves, a Turkish
terrorist organization. Most recently, the
communist line has been that the Central
Intelligence Agency and the Italian secret
service hired Agca to kill Pope John Paul
II and then coached him to implicate the
Bulgarians. This accusation centers
around Francesco Pazienza, a former Ital-
ian nfite`Iligence agent held in a New York
jail pending extradition to Italy on fraud
charges.
A Jan. 15 article in the Soviet publica-
tion Literaturnaya Gazeta claims, "Before
being arrested in the U.S., Francesco Pa-
zienza managed to hide in Paris a file that
can shed some light" on the pope plot.
The Jan. 29 issue of the same newspapes
contains a half-page article based on an in-
terview with Mr. Pazienza by its New York
correspondent, Iona Andronov. It begins
with a description of the searches required
of journalists interviewing federal pris-
oners in the U.S. As to the attempt on the
pope, the article concludes, "About this,
Pazienza, as I was convinced, Is afraid to
talk out loud within the walls of this Amer-
ican dungeon that has unseen ears."
In fact, by now this communist propa-
ganda line is completely unraveled, and of-
fers no credible alternative explanation for
the shooting.
As early as 1982, articles in Soviet and
Bulgarian periodicals began claiming that
Mr. Pazienza had met with Agca in Italy's
Ascoli Piceno Prison and arranged that
Agca should implicate the Bulgarians. In
the aftermath of the kidnapping and ran-
som notes demanding his freedom, Agca
announced in court that Mr. Pazienza had
indeed visited him in prison. Like so many
other attacks on his own credibility, Agca
soon admitted he'd been lying about any
meeting with Mr. Pazienza.
Despite this, Christian Roulette, a
French lawyer, wrote a book in 1984 charg-
ing that Mr. Pazienza coached Agca; Mr.
Roulette asked to testify in the Italian
trial, but was forced to admit he had no
knowledge of the purported secret Pa-
zienza files. Mr. Marini said the Roulette
claim was a glaring example of "massive
falsification." The only other testimony
connecting Mr. Pazienza to Agca comes
from Giovanni Pandico, a convicted Mafia
chief. According to reports in the Western
press, 'Mr. Paz enza has dropped various
s about wron oings by western intelli-
gence, though he as denied that he was
involved in a coaching of gca.
e ian judiciary decided to close its
investigations into the Soviet Bloc claim
that Agca was somehow coached after
Judge Ilario Martella took a deposition
from Mr. Pazienza in New York last Dec.
13. The transcript of this interview is the
principal evidence on Mr. Pazienza before
the Rome court.
Mr. Pazienza had requested the interro-
gation to clear his name, but began by tell-
ing Judge Martella, "You ask me the ques-
tions because unfortunately I don't know
what is true and what has been fabri-
cated-that is, what has in fact come out of
the trial hearing . . . and what on the
other hand as usual has come out in the
press in a, let's say, very confused
way."
Mr. Pazienza told Judge Martella that
he ` never even dreamed of n to
e
co I Piceno n and a in any case
he a e the Italian intelligence agency
SISMI ore the pa shooting and
wo ave a no access -to the prison.
Judge Martella said he accepted a r.
Pazienza had no contact with Agca, and
said the only evidence to the contrary was
from Pandico.
'What Is Your Information?'
Then Mr. Pazienza described discus-
sions in 1980 about SISMI setting up its
own disinformation network and claimed
SISMI had tried to assassinate him and
would kill him if he were extradited. He re-
ported on a conversation he'd had with
U.S. Customs agents who asked if he knew
that Stefano delle Chiaie, an Italian ac-
cused of right-wing terrorism, had been in
the U.S., accompanied by an unnamed
Turk. Judge Martella repeatedly told Mr.
Pazienza to confine his testimony to any
information that could shed light on the
pope plot. Finally, Judge Martella appar-
ently became exasperated with the ram-
bling testimony and there was the follow-
ing exchange:
Judge Martella: "What I would like to
know, since you have raised it, is what is
your information regarding the questions
pertaining to the attempt on the pope's
life? Here, to complete the logic, I asked
you, and I repeat the question, to the ex-
tent that you have knowledge of it, to clar-
ify further the motives behind this joint ac-
tion to kill the pope, if perhaps there was a
direct interest of delle Chiale or of the
Grey Wolves, or if on the other hand they
may have acted as intermediaries, that is,
on behalf of someone else. If you have
knowledge of this, say so; otherwise,
no.,,
Mr. Pazienza: "Yes, sir. If I answer
that I do have knowledge of this, I would
be lying, and I don't want to lie."
Judge Martella: "That is, you must not
lie . . . "
Mr. Pazienza: "I would have to tell you
my speculations, which have absolutely no
value."
Judge Martella: "No. Very good."
Nevertheless, the communist propa-
ganda line remains that Mr. Pazienza has
information that would clear the Bul-
garians. It may be too soon to know ex-
actly what the Rome court will rule, but it
is not too soon to ask how the West would
respond if the result is a guilty verdict af-
ter all. What does the West say to Bulgaria
and its Kremlin bosses if their agents are
officially implicated in one of the most
heinous crimes of the century?
Mr. Crovitz, a Journal editorial writer,
wrote extensively about the Agca case in
his former post as editorial page editor of
The Wall Street Journal/Europe.
_,.. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201340001-4