BRINGING IN THE WOLVES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505110007-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: October 31, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505110007-4
WASHINGTON TIMES
31 October 1984
Bringing in the wolves
Mehmet Ali Agca, who pumped a couple
of 9mm slugs into Pope John Paul II in 1981,
initially claimed to have acted alone. That
lie didn't stand, and with the indictments
last week of four Turks and three Bulgar-
ians, the haze surrounding this case contin-
ues its slow evaporation.
Fading fast are claims that Agca shot
John Paul because of "religious extrem-
ism" or political resentments. As investiga-
tors have discovered, Agca is not a religious
man, nor has he ever indicated any strong
political feelings, despite his relationship
with both right- and left-wing organiza-
tions. Instead, he was a hired killer, having
proved himself in an - eariier (successful)
shooting. The overriding question has to do
with his employer.
The answer is, well, involved. Agca's
story has changed since he got life for the
shooting, and understandably. After his
first murder, he was sprung from jail - not
a country club lockup, but a Turkish mili-
tary prison. He might have expected the
same in Italy, but in May 1982, seeing that
he was abandoned, he began to sing.
Agca maintains that he was directed'by
members of the Bulgarian secret service,
and an Italian prosecutor says the order was
issued by the Soviet KGB, at the time under
the direction of Yuri Andropov. Investigat-
ing Judge Ilario Martella stops short of
accusing the Soviets, but he does claim to
have verified one central fact: that an inter-
national conspiracy placed Mehmet Ali
Agca and a Browning semi-automatic
within yards of the pope. One suggested
motive was to crush Poland's rising Solidar-
ity movement, which the Polish pope sup-
ported. Last week's "liquidation" of another
pro-Solidarity priest suggests that such
thoughts do cross some minds.
In the first surprise of what will
doubtless be one of the century's more sen-
sational trials (and certainly its most politi-
cally sensitive), Judge Martella has
revealed that Oral Celik, who is said to have
planned Agca's escape from the Turkish
prison, not only accompanied the would-be
assassin to St. Peter's Square, but pulled off
a shot himself. Like many of the other sus-
pects in the case, Mr. Celik is at large. If he's
in Bulgaria, he may be having a hard time
purchasing life insurance. Elsewhere, the
Soviets are sa~ing it's all a CIA plot, but the
mounting evidence points increasingly to
the East.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505110007-4