Pope shooter wants to meet BenedictFrom correspondents in Istanbul
January 11, 2006
THE man who tried to kill Pope John Paul II almost quarter of a century ago wants to meet his target's successor.
Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turk, shot and wounded John Paul II, hitting him in the abdomen, on May 13, 1981 in St Peter's Square in Rome.
He is due to be freed from jail in Istanbul this week.
"He wants to meet the new (pontiff - Benedict XVI)," his brother Adnan Agca said. "If the Pope grants him an audience he would be ready to go to Italy."
He also suggested that the meeting could take place when Benedict XVI visits Turkey later this year.
Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi pardoned Agca, now 48, in 2000 and he was transferred to Turkey where he had been sentenced to death in absentia in 1981 for the 1979 killing of a journalist, Abdi Ipecki.
On his return he was also found guilty of two charges of armed violence in Istanbul in the 1970s and given a 36-year sentence.
