What happened to Ali Agca, the man John Paul II forgave 40 years ago?
Forty-two years since the attack to assassinate John Paul II, reasons behind his assailant Mehmet Ali Agça's actions still remain a mystery
On May 13, 1981, at 5:17 PM, three gunshots resonated out on St. Peter's Square in Rome. In front of the Vatican, the pope, traveling in a popemobile to greet the crowd attending his weekly audience, collapses. The author of the first two gunshots is immediately apprehended with the help of a nun who clings to him and causes his weapon to fall to the ground. The second shooter, responsible for the third gunshot, manages to escape. The first shooter arrested is Mehmet Ali Agca, a 23-year-old Turkish militant associated with the Grey Wolves, a Turkish nationalist armed organization.
Injured in the abdomen, left hand, and right arm, Pope John Paul II took months to recover from the attack. A year and a half later, on December 27, 1983, he decided to visit the man who tried to assassinate him in his cell at Rebibbia prison in Rome.
Pope John Paul II Meets Ali Agca
"Pope John Paul II is primarily a man of faith. From the Gemelli Hospital where he is treated, he thinks to himself: 'I will forgive before the whole world to show what forgiveness is.' It is a journey of faith and hope," explains Bernard Lecomte, journalist and writer. But it's likely that the purpose of this visit was twofold: "The pope is not naive," says Lecomte, "he takes advantage of this spiritual and pastoral moment to learn more and asks who is behind the attack."
On-site, journalists are in a frenzy and have even hired a professional lip-reader to find out what the two men are saying. However, during this meeting, Ali Agca says nothing about the reasons that led him to shoot the pope. Over time, many theories have been suggested to explain this action: the mafia, the KGB, the CIA, Iran...
The first theory suggested after the attack, and still the favored hypothesis by many commentators today, is that the Kremlin ordered the pope's assassination. "In 1981, Poland was a colossal stake between the Soviet Union and the West. We were right in the middle of the Solidarnosc affair [the first free trade union in the Eastern bloc], and Poland was in turmoil. And John-Paul II, a Pole himself, clearly supported Solidarnosc. So in May 1981, it is evident that the pope was the most dangerous man at the moment for the KGB. In France, Germany, and elsewhere, everyone believed this thesis, and it still does today," explains Lecomte.
The "Bulgarian Connection" Theory
Suspicion fell on the KGB, and more specifically the "Bulgarian connection" theory developed in the media. A theory suggesting that Ali Agca was recruited by the Bulgarian secret services, which at the time answered to the Soviet services. This theory was abandoned after Serguei Antonov, accused of organizing the attack by the Turk Ali Agca and the main person implicated in the case, was found dead in his apartment.
Another "credible" possibility, according to Lecomte, is that Ali Agca acted on behalf of the Turkish nationalist armed organization, the Grey Wolves. "For them, the pope was a Western leader who had to be eliminated. It could have been the President of the United States; it would have been the same," says Lecomte. However, according to the writer, it is impossible to know if, at the time he tried to kill the pope, Ali Agca was still being manipulated by the organization.
The volatile personality of the shooter and the many contradictions in his story make the successive investigations complicated. Pardoned in 2000 by the Italian president, he is extradited to Turkey, where he is again imprisoned for the murder of a Turkish journalist in 1979. Ali Agça is finally released in 2010. Doctors diagnose him with "antisocial personality disorder". In 2013, he published his autobiography, in which he accused, this time, Ayatollah Khomeini of having ordered the assassination attempt on John Paul II. This further muddles the trails.
In his latest media appearance, on the Italian channel Canale 5 in 2016, Ali Agca claimed to have renounced Islam and converted to Catholicism. Today, none of the theories about the May 13 attack have been proved.