PAPAL PLOT TRIAL HEARS TESTIMONY IN SWITZERLAND

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706600011-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 20, 2011
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: October 27, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 20.11/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706600011-4
ARTICLE APP E 27 October 1985
ON PAGE
Papal Plat Trial Hears Testimony in Switzerland
By JOHN TAGLIABUE
Sped-"to Tke New York Times
ROME, Oct. 23 - The court trying
seven men accused of conspiring to kill
Pope John Paul II traveled to Switzer-,
land this week on the first of several
trips through Europe to question de-
fendants and witnesses thought capa-
ble of testing the contentions of the
court's chief witness, Mehmet All
Agra.
On the first leg of its travels the court
heard an extreme right-wing Turk
serving a five-year jail sentence in
Switzerland for drug trafficking call
Mr. Agca "a big liar" and contest hie
account of the papal assassination at,
tempt.
The Turk, Mehmet Sener, 29 years
old, has been accused by other Turks,
including Mr. Agca, of leaving bought
the gun used to shoot the Pope, of ac-
companying Mr. Agca to Switzerland
on his way to Italy, and of knowing in
advance of Mr Agca's intention to kill
the Pope.
The testimony the court seeks has as-
sumed added significance since the
death in a Turkish jail earlier this
month of one of the trial's original eight
defendants. Bekir Celenk, a purported
Turkish racketeer who Mr. Agca says
was his original link with the Bulgarian
secret service.
j Mr Celenk, who was on trial in Tur-
key on charges of drug and arms smug-
gling when he died of a heart attack
Oct. 14, consistently denied complicity
in the plot against the Pope. But Italiar
magistrates hoped Mr. Celenk, whc
was on trial here in absentia, might
help unravel some of Mr. Agca's often-
contradictory testimony.
In two days of questioning by Chief
Judge Severino Santiapichi, Mr. Sener
denied Mr. Celenk had anything to dc
with the shooting of the Pope.
The public prosecutor, Antonio Mari-
m. said by telephone from Switzerland
that Mr. Sener, who is serving a jail
;entente in Burgdorf, near Bern,
agreed to come to Rome to face Mr.
Agca. Despite Mr. Celenk's death, Mr.
Marini said, the court sought to travel
to Turkey Nov. 11 to hear Abuzer Ugur-
lu, another purported Turkish racket-
eer and associate of Mr. Celenk who op-
erated out of Sofia, the Bulgarian capi-
tal. Mr. Agca has said Mr. Ugurlu was
one of his contacts when he first trav-
eled to Bulgaria in 1980.
The prosecutor said the court also
sought permission to visit Bulgaria
Nov. 21 to question Maj. Zhelyo K.
Vasilev, the former deputy military
attach@ at Bulgaria's Rome embassy,
and Todor S. Aivasov, a Bulgarian dip
lomat. Mr. Agca has implicated both
men in the purported plot. The men
have denied any wrongdoing, and Bul?
earia has refused to hand them over tc
the Italians.
The seven defendants are Sergei I j
Antonov, the former head of the Rome;
office of the Bulgarian airline, the only
Bulgarian in Italian custody, Mr. Aiva-
sov, Major'Vasilev, and four Turks -
Mr. Agca, Musa Serdar Celebi, Omar
Bagci and Oral Celik.
In testimony that cast the role of
Turkish right-wing extremists far
larger than the picture that emerged in
pretrial investigations, Mr. Agca has
said during the trial that he shared an
apartment in Vienna with Mr. Sener
and several other Turks, and that Mr.
Sener helped him buy the pistol there
that was later used to shoot the Pope.
Abdullah Catli, another extreme
right-wing Turk who, according,to Mr.
Agca, lived in the apartment, testified
in September that Mr. Sener traveled,
with Mr.. Agca from Vienna a Switzer-
land in April 1981 and learned there
that he planned to shoot the Pope
According to an official who attended
the hearings this week, Mr Sener
denied having helped purchase the gun,
and said he knew nothing of Mr. Agca's
intentions.
Mr. Sener's testimony departs signif-
icantly from the account he gave Judge
Ilario Martella, the magistrate whose
investigation led to the trial. Ques-
tioned by Judge Martella, Mr Sener
denied any contact with Mr Agca. In-
deed, the existence of the Vienna apart-
ment and the extensive contacts of Mr.
Agca with other Turks like Mr. Sener
and Mr. Catli in Western Europe before
the assassination attempt are among
the most startling results to emerge
from the trial's 50 sessions thus far.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706600011-4