KGB Ordered Papal Assassination
March 30, 2005 | Leave a Comment
ROME (AFP) – New documents found in the files of the former East German intelligence services confirm the 1981 assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II was ordered by the Soviet KGB and assigned to Bulgarian agents, an Italian daily said.
The Corriere della Sera said that the documents found by the German government indicated that the KGB ordered Bulgarian colleagues to carry out the killing, leaving the East German service known as the Stasi to coordinate the operation and cover up the traces afterwards.
Bulgaria then handed the execution of the plot to Turkish extremists, including Mehmet Ali Agca, who pulled the trigger.
The daily said the documents had been handed over to Bulgaria and would be made available to the Italian parliamentary commission inquiring into the activities of formerly Communist eastern European regimes in Italy.
The newspaper said the documents consist mostly of letters from Stasi operatives to their Bulgarian counterparts seeking help in covering up traces after the attack and denying Bulgarian involvement.
Ali Agca, who is now in jail in Turkey, claimed after his arrest that the operation was under the control of the Bulgarian embassy in Rome. The Bulgarians have always insisted they were innocent and argued that Agca’s story was part of an anti-communist plot by the Italian secret service and the CIA.
The paper said the documents back up the pope’s own memories of the assassination attempt in May 1981 in his book “Memory and Identity: Conversations Between Millenniums,” in which he said he was convinced that the attack was not planned or directed by Ali Agca.
The group War Resisters Support Campaign planned a rally in Toronto on Thursday to press its demand the government allow U.S. war resisters to stay in Canada.
“We’re disappointed but not surprised,” said spokesman Lee Zaslofsky.
“We believe that in the end, Canada will do the right thing and allow these courageous young men to stay.”
Hinzman, whose only prior knowledge of Canada was CBC radio broadcasts, has admitted that seeking asylum in Canada was seemingly “preposterous.”
He enlisted voluntarily in the U.S. army for four years in November 2000, planning to have the military later pay for his university education.
He worked his way up to the rank of specialist, and was a crack infantryman with the 82nd Airborne Division based in Fort Bragg, N.C., until he deserted.
Comments