Pope's released shooter declared unfit for military duty - Summary

Istanbul - Pope John Paul II's 52-year-old would-be assassin was released from prison Monday and taken to a military facility where he was declared unfit for duty. In a statement handwritten in English and released at the prison gates by his lawyers, Mehmet Ali Agca proclaimed himself "the Christ eternal."

"The gospel is full of mistakes, I will write the perfect gospel," the statement 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."

Agca, who shot the Pope in Rome's St Peter's Square in 1981, was taken by a convoy of vehicles to a military facility in the Turkish capital, Ankara. Turkey has universal conscription and Agca had never served in the military.

According to Turkish television reports, Agca was released after being check out and deemed unfit to serve. He then went to an Ankara hotel, where his lawyers said he would spend the next several days.

Images in the Turkish press showed Agca holding up his fist defiantly while sitting in a car with darkened windows on his way out of prison.

Agca was jailed in Italy for the papal attack until 2000, when he was pardoned. The pope forgave Agca in a 1983 visit to his Italian prison cell. After being released in Italy, Agca had to serve time in prison in Turkey for the 1979 attempted murder of a Turkish journalist.

Agca has expressed interest in landing book deals upon his release and also to earn money doing interviews with media outlets about the papal attack.

"We have yet to agree with any television or publishing company," Yilmaz Abosoglu, one of Agca's lawyers, told reporters in Ankara.

"We'll wait and see what will happen."

Agca had also previously announced plans to convert to Christianity and expressed a desire to go to Rome to visit the grave of Pope John Paul II.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/304456,popes-released-shooter-declared-unfit-for-military-duty--summary.html.