TURKISH GUNMAN WANTS TO VISIT POPE JOHN PAUL'S TOMB

ISTANBUL, Turkey – Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca wants to meet Pope Benedict and visit the tomb of Pope John Paul II, whom he tried to kill in 1981, after his release from prison next week, he said in comments faxed to Reuters on Wednesday.

• The former far-right gangster served 19 years in an Italian prison for the assassination attempt, before being pardoned at the pope’s behest in 2000 and extradited to serve time in Turkey for crimes, including the 1979 murder of a newspaper editor.
• “I want to visit the Vatican and the Pope (Benedict) Ratzinger. I also want to visit the grave of one of the most wonderful and respectable people of the 20th century, Pope John Paul II,” he said in a handwritten statement.
• Mystery surrounds his motives for shooting the pope in the Vatican’s St Peter’s Square. Some believe he was a hitman for Soviet-era East European security services alarmed by the Polish-born pontiff’s fierce opposition to communism.
• Agca, who is to be released on Jan 18 from his prison in the Turkish capital Ankara, said he would answer questions on the attack in the coming weeks, including whether the Kremlin used the Bulgarian government in the assassination attempt.
• He said the world needed the Vatican as it faced economic, ecological and human crises.
• The rambling and bizarre statement went on to call on Pope Benedict to announce the end of the world.
• He said he would prove within a few years that he was “Agca the Messiah” and that he would write the “perfect bible”.
• Similar claims in the past have prompted questions about Agca’s mental health, but he said he was in good condition.
• “For around 30 years I have been staying in cells on my own. I experienced hell on earth. But in spite of everything I am well. I feel good in myself both physically and psychologically,” he said.
• In a statement issued by his lawyers earlier on Wednesday, Agca had called for a “new American Empire” championing democracy, peace and freedom.
• The 52-year-old failed assassin condemned terrorism, especially al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
• “Terrorism is the Evil of Devil. All religions prohibit and condemn terrorism. The al Qaeda is a psychopathic criminal Nazi organisation,” Agca wrote.
• Agca went on to name bin Laden, Adolf Hitler, jailed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan and Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot as “the common enemies of all religions and all nations in the world”.
• In his comments to Reuters he said he planned to live in Istanbul but had not decided yet whether to get married.
• He also said he had received many offers internationally to make films and write books.

Source: Reuters