Gunman who tried to kill Pope to be released
Mehmet Ali Agca, the gunman who tried to kill Pope John Paul II nearly 30 years ago, is to be released from a Turkish prison in January after 28 years in Italian and Turkish jails. He plans to pray at the late pontiff's tomb in Rome.
It was reported in Italy that he hoped to move to the country after he is released on January 18, 2010 from Yenikent prison in Ankara, where he is serving a sentence for crimes committed before the attack on the Pope.
La Repubblica said that Agca's first wish was to pray at the tomb of the Polish-born Pope in the crypt of St Peter's Basilica.
Agca, a member of the right-wing extremist Turkish organisation the Grey Wolves, served nearly 20 years of a life sentence at high-security prisons in Italy after he shot Pope John Paul in St Peter's Square on May 13, 1981, wounding him in the abdomen.
Read entire article at Times (UK)
It was reported in Italy that he hoped to move to the country after he is released on January 18, 2010 from Yenikent prison in Ankara, where he is serving a sentence for crimes committed before the attack on the Pope.
La Repubblica said that Agca's first wish was to pray at the tomb of the Polish-born Pope in the crypt of St Peter's Basilica.
Agca, a member of the right-wing extremist Turkish organisation the Grey Wolves, served nearly 20 years of a life sentence at high-security prisons in Italy after he shot Pope John Paul in St Peter's Square on May 13, 1981, wounding him in the abdomen.