Agca 'writing a new Bible' ISTANBUL: Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who tried to kill pope John Paul II, was "writing a new bible" when he was rearrested on Friday under government "threats and pressure", his brother said yesterday as he led a protest outside the prison holding him.
"Is justice a toy of the media?" asked one of the placards Adnan Agca and a group of supporters waved outside the Kartal prison, where the former right-wing hitman was taken Friday night after just eight days of freedom.
Agca's release was widely criticised by the media, which yesterday was near unanimous in hailing the decision to send him back to jail.
Agca was freed on January 12 after 19 years in Italian prisons for his attempt on John Paul II's life and five and a half in Turkish prisons for an earlier murder and two robberies.
His early release based on sentence reductions and amendments to the penal code was overturned by the High Court of Appeals, acting under instructions from the justice ministry, which said his jail time had been miscalculated.
"Judges and prosecutors are under heavy threats and pressure," Adnan Agca told reporters outside the prison. "They are under pressure from their own ministry.
"The Turkish people will never allow Mehmet Ali Agca to die in jail," he said.
"The Vatican has proclaimed my brother the messiah. My brother is the messiah, he is the mahdi (the Muslim messiah).
"Believe it or not, he has dedicated his life and his ideal to his country and to his nation," Adnan Agca said, adding that his brother's attorney would take legal action against the Appeals Court decision.
Lawyer Mustafa Demirbag told the NTV news channel that he would also file a formal complaint against Justice Minister Cemil Cicek, who ordered the review.
The Supreme Court's decision to return Agca to prison shows the country's legal system works and is able to correct its errors, Cicek said yesterday.
"My brother was very happy to have been set free," Adnan Agca said. "He was not expecting this decision. He was writing a new Bible."
Some angry, some jubilant, Turkish newspapers agreed that Agca's return to jail was a good thing.
"Back where he belongs," headlined the liberal Milliyet, whose emblematic editor Abdi Ipekci was murdered by Agca in 1979, two years before he shot and wounded John Paul II in Rome's St Peter's Square.
"Scandal in spades", bannered the popular Aksam.
The miscalculation of sentence reductions made Turkey "the laughing stock of the world", Aksam wrote, "and to boot, we gave the killer centrestage." "Eight days of vacation, eight more years in jail," headlined the popular Vatan; "Forward, march - back to the hole," was the banner in the mass selling Hurriyet, while the liberal Radikal wrote: "Killer fails to flee."
Agca, who fled a Turkish prison while awaiting trial for the Ipekci murder and resurfaced, gun in hand, outside the Vatican on May 13, 1981, was pardoned by Italy in 2000 and extradited to Turkey.
