Posted on 03/31/2005 6:26:24 AM PST by Pendragon_6
A Vatican cardinal has promptly dismissed reported claims by the Turkish man who shot Pope John Paul II that Vatican prelates helped him carry out the 1981 attack in St. Peter's Square.
Mehmet Ali Agca, now jailed in Turkey, shot John Paul in the abdomen on May 13, 1981, while the pope was riding in an open car in Rome's St. Peter's Square. He has given conflicting reasons for the attack on the Pope and his motives remain unclear.
"Without the help of priests and cardinals I would have not been able to carry out that action," Agca was quoted as saying in an interview with the Italian daily La Repubblica. "The devil is within the Vatican."
But in an apparently contradictory remark, Ali Agca also said in the interview that "nobody in the world knew of my attempt."
Agca was extradited to Turkey in 2000 after serving almost 20 years in Italy for the shooting of the Pope, and is now serving time in jail for separate crimes.
"Ali Agca has always sidetracked (investigations) rather than disclosing real facts," Cardinal Roberto Tucci, former organiser of papal trips, told Vatican Radio. "One must be very suspicious of his statements."
Continued
Cookoo!
Face it guys. In some way, we're all guilty of shooting the pope.
Apparently contradictory? Ya think?
Yesterday's article on the involvement of the KGB, the Stasi, and the Bulgarians has a far greater ring of truth.
Red Rabbit. Clancy does it again!
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