Papal assailant claims link to deity

Press, 29 May 1985, Page 10

Papal assailant claims link to deity

NZPA-Reuter Rome Mehmet Ali Agca, who tried to kill the Pope, proclaimed that he was Jesus Christ and that the end of the world was nigh when he went on trial again yesterday accused of conspiring to assassinate the Pontiff. Agca’s outburst was made on the first day of a sensational trial in which he, four other Turks, and three Bulgarians face charges of conspiracy. As the Court was reconvening after a recess to consider a defence submission, Agca, a Muslim, declared in Italian, “I am Jesus Christ. I am omnipotent. I announce the end of

the world. The world will be destroyed.” Agca was silenced when a Court official shouted that he was not allowed to talk without permission. The police hustled the Turk out of the courtroom but returned him a few minutes later. Agca, aged 27, is already serving a life sentence for shooting and wounding the Pope in St Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981. The prosecution case hinges on evidence by Agca that East European secret services hired a group of Turkish Right-wing extremists to assassinate Pope John Paul 11. When the hearing resumed the Court’s president, Judge Severino San-

tiapichi, announced that a defence plea to have charges dropped against two Bulgarian defendants on grounds of diplomatic immunity had been rejected.

A defence lawyer, Manfredo Rossi, argued that the indictment of Todor Aivazov and Zhelyo Vassilev, former officials at the Bulgarian Embassy in Rome, violated the 1961 Vienna convention on diplomatic immunity.

The two diplomats have returned to Bulgaria and are being tried in absentia, as are two Turkish defendants. The accused present in court were Agca, a Bulgarian airline official, Sergei Antonov, and two Turks,

Omer Bagci and Musa Serdar Celebi.

The public prosecutor, Mr Antonio Marini, opposed Mr Rossi’s request, saying that not all offences by diplomats were covered by immunity. "Plotting an attack on the' supreme Pontiff does not come within the normal duties of a diplomat,” he said.

Judge Santiapichi ruled that Aivazov and Vassilev would continue to be treated as defendants, and that the Court would decide at the end of the trial — expected to last many months — what acts were compatible with diplomatic status.

Bulgaria has refused to extradite Vassilev, a former assistant military attache,

and Aivazov, an embassy treasurer, as well as Bekir Celenk, a Sofia-based Turkish businessman. Another Turkish defendant, Oral Celik, has disappeared. Judge Santiapichi also rejected a request by a lawyer for Ann Odre, an American wounded in the attack on the Pope, for the trial to be delayed while she went to Rome to file for damages from all the defendants. He said that Mrs Odre had followed wrong procedures and not supplied enough documentation to sue for damages.

When the afternoon session began Judge Santiapichi called Agca to the wit-ness-stand and questioned him about the gun with

which he shot the Pope. Agca, speaking in Italian, admitted a charge of illegally importing into Italy the 9mm Browning pistol. The Court president stopped Agca when he began speaking about his mental state and the reliability of his evidence, describing himself as “completely mentally sane, a rational man and rather intelligent.”

Acoustics problems prevented many lawyers, jour nalists, and defendants in the former gymnasium from hearing Agca’s words. Judge Santiapichi halted the proceedings to enable technicians to improve the acoustics, but when the problems persisted ad-, journed the trial to today. /