The man is holding up well. Today is 65 years old but it looks younger. She dresses neatly. The hair, already gray, always short. She seems to be looking for a respectability that she will never get. She has a oblique, disturbed look that can’t hide a casual smile. She doesn’t usually wear black glasses or caps; she doesn’t grow a beard either. He wants people to recognize him. He enjoys the looks on the street, the look of surprise when someone finds out who he is, the whispers he leaves behind. It is the only thing left for him: that they know who he is.
Mehmet Ali Agca lives in Istanbul. He has been free for twelve years. Almost 42 years ago he was on the cover of all the world’s newspapers for several days: On May 13, 1981, he shot John Paul II four times. But the Pope survived and Ali Agca, the Turkish murderer, was arrested.
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The photo is almost perfect. The only thing missing is his face, the hit man. The public is seen on that bright and warm Wednesday. It is known that it was a Wednesday because shortly after assuming the pontificate, the first non-Italian Pope in four centuries, he had decided to go out to greet the faithful once a month a week. Those public audiences became an immediate success thanks to the charisma of John Paul II. People smile, they are happy. A young woman stands out in the background of the image: she is laughing and is on someone’s shoulders to get a better view. Others in the front row stretch their hands forward. John Paul II greets and distributes blessings from the convertible Pope Mobile. Around him, some cleric, and several security men in dark suits. Among the public, among the fourth or fifth row of people who crowded together to try to touch or, at least, to get closer to the Pope, a hand and a gun appear pointing at Wojtyla. A second later, when the index finger of that hand presses the trigger, the disaster will begin and the white garment will be soaked in blood.
There were several shots. Four hit the Pope. It is not clear if the weapon, a 9mm Browning, jammed or ran out of ammunition, the truth is that the man who fired the shot could not finish his job and that the previous precarious plan he had concocted could not be carried out. Camillo Cibin threw himself on top of the assassin. Cibin had been the head of Vatican security for a decade (he remained so for many more years: he protected six Popes). Part of the public also collaborated in the arrest.
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The Popemobile sped toward the hospital. The first news was not encouraging. A wound in the arm, one in the hand and two bullets had entered the lower abdomen, destroying part of the intestines. While the Supreme Pontiff was in the operating room and the television news from all over the world repeated the misty video of the moment of the attack on a loop, it was learned that the assailant was a 23-year-old Turk: Ali Agca.
In the photos he was seen, disheveled, with a shabby sweater and a baleful look. A few days passed until his record was known and questions were raised about the motive for the attack.
The man who tried to kill the Pope was a murderer. In 1979, he had killed Abdi Ipekci, an opposition journalist, director of one of the most important newspapers in the country, in Turkey. He was denounced by several witnesses and, after a short search, arrested by the Turkish police. They tried him with speed and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. During the trial it was learned that he was a member of an ultranationalist subversive group, the Gray Wolves. At the age of six months, Ali Agca escaped from a high-security military prison with the help of one of the Gray Wolves commanders, Abdullah Catli. His destination was Bulgaria, where the Turkish mafia headquarters was located. The mafia was the main source of financing for the subversive group.
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It was at that moment that it became known what his past life had been like. From a very young age Ali Agca was dedicated to crime. Minor actions first. Scams, the occasional beating on demand, petty theft: an ambitious but minor thug. Later he was involved in the robbery of two banks. Until at the age of 21 he became a murderer. After his escape to Bulgaria, his trail was lost. He obtained false passports and with various identities, he passed through several European countries. They are misty months in which it is not known what he did or who he worked for. All that remains of those days are Agca’s later accounts, always confused, contradictory, and not very true.
It is believed that the weapon with which he shot John Paul II was bought, used, in Vienna. That he entered Italy from the north, that he spent a few days in Milan, until he went to the Vatican.
The plan was simple. Arriving early at St. Peter’s Square with Oral Celik, a minor Turkish mobster and his accomplice in this criminal enterprise, pretending to be tourists until the Popemobile passed by. Agca was to shoot while Celik would launch a minor explosive, which would cause panic and confusion, and would allow them to escape the scene to take refuge in the Bulgarian embassy in Rome.
In police interrogations and during the subsequent trial in which he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the attempted assassination, Agca spoke of an international conspiracy and accomplices. But nothing was proven. Not even that Celik was his accomplice and that he was involved. The truth is that someone had financed his raid. Investigators believed that the Turkish mafia and the extremist group he had been part of were behind it. In an attempt to honor his criminal past, he believed that having a revolutionary patina would improve his image, and claimed that he had had a period of military training with the Palestinian Liberation Front but no evidence of that link was ever found.
In 1983, Agca returned to the front page of the newspapers. John Paul II went to the prison and had a meeting with him in which he publicly forgave him. Another great photo: the two of them sitting in simple chairs, facing each other, very close, leaning forward to further reduce the distance, the Pope speaking and the one who tried to kill him seems to be listening with interest, behind a radiator. They were 22 minutes that gave a strong message to the world. It was not the only gesture of the Pope who, years later, received the mother and brother of the one who tried to assassinate him.
When John Paul II died, Agca declared that he was very sad because the Pope was like a brother to him. On several occasions he gave whimsical versions of what happened in that brief encounter with his victim: from when he warned him of the end of the world to when he told him who was behind the attack.
Agca remained in prison in Italy until the year 2000 when he was amnestied by the Prime Minister. The same day he was deported to Turkey. Upon arriving in his country, they arrested him. He had to serve the sentence for the murder of the journalist and two cases of bank robbery were added to him. Over time, other crimes came to light, but the vast majority of them were declared time-barred by Turkish justice. Once again, it seemed, Ali Agca would get away with it: he once again escaped from prison. But they found it in Bulgaria very quickly.
Ten years of detention followed, with legal twists and turns, presentations by his lawyers, and rulings from the Supreme Court of his country, until in 2010, when he was released.
During those years, whenever he could, he tried to attract attention. She changed her version of who was behind the attack several times. She said it was the Soviet Union because of Wojtyla’s involvement with Solidarity, Walesa and Polish freedom. Some time later, he assured that it was Khomeini and Iran who financed it. He spoke of extremist groups of uncertain origin. And he also accused the Vatican and his inmate.
Tom Clancy and Frederick Forsyth they were two of the best-selling authors who used it for their fictions and to deploy attractive conspiracy theories in their novels. Agca saw a beta and stated that he would publish a book with Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code. Another of his lies.
But what was true is that for years Agca sought an agreement with a publisher to write his memoirs. He wanted many millions of dollars but had to give up ambition when a real offer appeared. In 2013, finally, he published his autobiography. The book did not have a major impact. Agca’s credibility at that point was nil. Too many versions, too many contradictions.
About his past love life, in an interview with the Daily Mail, Agca said that he had had, before trying to kill the Pope, an English girlfriend. But nothing in the story seemed believable or accurate. She said that her name was Sara, that she was a few years older than him, that she did not know of her intention to commit an assassination, but she did not remember where she lived, what her last name was, or many details of the relationship. . At the end of last year, the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera interviewed Elena Rossi, a 55-year-old Italian. Elena said that she and Ali began to cross letters many years ago until they met in person in 2015. They got married that same day after Elena converted to Islam. They took photos on a park bench and talked about how they led a quiet life sharing their love.
Agca, in recent years, requested Polish nationality: “To have something more to share with his friend John Paul II”, he visited his grave with a large bouquet of flowers, asked for an audience with Pope Francis and was offended when he did not even give him They answered and announced several times the imminence of the end of the world. A few weeks ago, both he and his wife publicly said that Emanuela Orlandi, a young Italian woman who disappeared 40 years ago as a 15-year-old teenager and whose case was brought to life by a Netflix series, was alive and that the Vatican had been involved in your demise. Another attempt to use the topic of the moment to get space in the media, to regain some prominence.
Currently, Ali Agca lives in Istanbul in a three-room apartment, together with his wife, he supports himself with the money he obtained, and still has, from his publishing contract. His main activity is feeding and caring for stray dogs and cats, and giving interviews from time to time in which he unfolds his lies and delusional theories, trying to improve his image, so that people do not forget about him. .
Today he celebrates his 65 years in Istanbul. What Agca still didn’t realize is that even the heinous act for which he sought recognition and fame didn’t turn out well. Even in that it failed.
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