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On May 13, 1981, Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turkish man, shot Pope John Paul II in Saint Peter’s Square at the Vatican.
The Pope was greeting thousands of people while riding in his Popemobile when Agca fired several shots at close range with a pistol.
Two bullets struck the Pope, one in the abdomen and another in his right arm and hand. Bystanders quickly intervened, detaining Agca until police arrived to apprehend him.
At the time, Pope John Paul II was the first Polish pope and the first non-Italian pope in 456 years.
The 60-year-old pontiff was seriously injured and was rushed to Gemelli Hospital in Rome, where he underwent an emergency surgery that lasted over five hours. Despite the severity of his injuries, he survived, attributing his survival to divine intervention.
Pope John Paul II Survives Assassination Attempt
Reports later indicated that Agca was a member of the far-right Turkish nationalist group known as the Grey Wolves. Before the attack, he had escaped from prison in Turkey, where he was serving for murdering a newspaper editor.
After the shooting, he was apprehended at the scene and later sentenced to life imprisonment in Italy.
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Over the years, various claims emerged regarding the motives behind the attack, including suggestions that Agca was linked to the Bulgarian secret service and, by extension, Soviet intelligence.
In the early 1980s, he allegedly claimed that the Bulgarian secret service orchestrated the assassination attempt on behalf of the Soviet KGB. The theory claimed that the Soviet Union feared Pope John Paul II’s influence, particularly his support for the Solidarity movement in Poland, which challenged Communist rule.
Pontiff Forgives Man Who Shot Him
The Pope was a vocal critic of Marxist ideology, which he described as undermining individual dignity and freedom, and later on, he played a crucial role in the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.
In an act of forgiveness, the Pope visited the assailant in prison in 1983 and personally forgave him during a private meeting. Later, at the Pope’s request, the Italian government pardoned Agca in 2000, and he was extradited to Turkey.
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Upon his return to Turkey, Agca faced further imprisonment for the 1979 murder of journalist Abdi İpekçi and other crimes.
After going through several legal proceedings, including a short release in 2006 that was later cancelled, Agca was finally set free from prison in Turkey on January 18, 2010.
Pope John Paul II passed away on April 2, 2005, at the age of 84, after a prolonged period of illness. He died in his private apartment in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.
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