Man who shot Pope John Paul II released
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By Tom Powell. |  |
Monday, 18, Jan 2010 10:48
The gunman who attempted to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981 has been released from prison in Turkey today.
Mehmet Ali Agca, who attempted to kill the Pope when he shot the religious leader in the abdomen, served 29 years in prison for the crime.
Agca spent 19 years in an Italian prison, and another ten in Turkey for the murder of a newspaper editor. He was a militant of the Grey Wolves, when he attempted to kill the Pope, who forgave Agca when he met him in 1983.
Agca's mental health has continually come under question, with him proclaiming to be Jesus Christ, and at one point saying the shooting was ordered by the Bulgarian secret service, which was never proved.
Turkish media said Agca will now be taken to a military facility and then to a hospital to be assessed for compulsory military service.
In a statement distributed earlier today by his lawyer outside the prison in Sincan on the outskirts of Ankara, the Turkish capital, he said: "I proclaim the end of the world. All the world will be destroyed in this century. Every human being will die in this century... I am the Christ eternal."