Pope survives assasination attempt, 1981; photo - EPAWith the 30th anniversary of the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II this week (13 May), Italian authors of a new book are reviving accusation that the KGB orchestrated the attempt and planned to kill Lech Walesa as well.
Italian authors Ferdinando Imposimato, a retired judge, and Sandro Provvisionato, a journalist, release their joint work, Attack on the Pope, this week.
In the book, the authors argue that the crime was not the work of a lone extremist, but the result of a concerted conspiracy engineered by the Soviet Union and carried out with the aid of the Bulgarian Secret Services and the Turkish mafia.
Four bullets struck the Pope as he moved through crowds outside St. Peter's on 13th May, 1981. Miraculously, he survived. The assailant was Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turkish assassin.
Ali Agca was apprehended immediately and given a life sentence. Although he initially implicated Bulgarian backing, he remained evasive about his motives. Later, the Pope visited his would-be murderer, privately and publicly forgiving him.
The Italian authors go as far as to say that Lech Walesa was also in line to be assassinated, saying that there was a plot to execute the Solidarity hero during his visit to Rome in January 1981.
Plot
“The KGB took the decision to physically eliminate its two greatest opponents, Lech Walesa and John Paul II,” the authors insist.
Earlier this year, Poland's former communist leader General Wojciech Jaruzezski offered a different thesis, postulating that the plot was hatched by Muslim extremists.
“Radical Islam detested the Pope and saw in him a leader of crusades,” the 87 year-old claimed.
No conclusive proof of either theory has yet been submitted, however. (nh)