EMIGRE TIES RUSSIAN TO POPE CASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100580003-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: October 13, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/24: CIA-RDP90-0055
:`:RTTCLE APPEARED
ON PACE -3
STAT
NEW YORK TIMES
13 October 198+
Emigre Ties Russian to Pope Case
PARIS, Oct. 12 (Reuters) - An' as-
sociate of a Soviet journalist who re-
turned to Moscow last month asserts
that the man, Oleg G. Bitov, was forci-
bly taken back by K.G.B. men because
bf fears that he would give evidence to
,talian officials investigating the at-
tempted assassination of Pope John
Paul 11. -
The friend, Anatoly Gladilin, a Rus-
sian emigre writer, wrote in an analy-
sis of the case in Le Monde that Mr.
Bitov had agreed to give written testi-
mony in the case against a Bulgarian
suspect, Sergei Ivanov Antonov,
shortly before Mr. Bitov vanished from
Britain in August.
Mr. Bitov, a senior journalist for the
weekly Literaturnaya Gazeta, was
thought to have defected at the Venice
Film Festival in September 1983 and to
have been given asylum in Britain.
He reappeared in Moscow last month
and asserted at a news conference teat
he had not defected but had been kid-
napped and tortured by British agents.
Mr. Gladilin wrote: "I spent many
hours alone with Bitov; I was the last to
see him in London. I spent the evening
of Aug. 15 with him. We spoke by tele-
phone on the 16th and agreed to meet on
the 17th. But on the 17th, Bitov had dis-
appeared.
"Believe me, Bitov did not at all look
like someone who was planning to re-
turn to the Soviet Union. I am sure he
was kidnapped in London and held his
press conference in Moscow under the
dictation of the K.G.B."
Mr. Gladilin said Mr. Bitov had trav-
eledto Italy to co lest material for_-
cles implicatlltg_le cen~rat rn~alli_
gence Agen~c' in the shooting of the
Pope y MehmetATi Agca, a Turk, on
MayT3, _198!.
Mr. Gladilin wrote that after Mr.
Bitov's defection to Britain the K.G.B.
became increasingly worried that he
would appear as a witness at the trial of
Mr. Antonov, a Bulgarian airline offi-
cial implicated by Mr. Agca in the plot.
`Invited to Testify'
He added: "I know that the K.G.B.'s
fears were well founded. Bitov was in-
vited to testify. It was not the British
who asked him, and I do not know ex-
actly who did."
- "Bitov refused to go to Italy and give
evidence, knowing that the K.G.B.
would not forgive him. But he agreed to
give a written deposition which could
be read at a closed court session."
Mr. Gladilin said that Mr. Bitov was
sent a dossier on the Antonov case but
that his fate was sealed by the fact that
the K.G.B. found out.
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100580003-6