by David Dastych, Warsaw, Poland

Warsaw (PMN)—In his book "Memory and Identity," Pope John Paul II said of his visit after Christmas 1983 to Rebibbia Prison to see Mehmet Ali Agca: "We talked for a long time. Ali Agca is, as everyone says, a professional assassin, which means that the assassination was not his initiative [but one] that someone else thought of it, someone else gave the order. I had a feeling that I would survive. I was in pain, I had reason to be afraid, but I had this strange feeling of confidence … Oh, my Lord! This was a difficult experience."

When the Pope arrived in his cell, Agca was dressed in a blue crewneck sweater, jeans and blue-and-white running shoes from which the laces had been removed. He was unshaved. Agca kissed John Paul’s hand.

"Do you speak Italian?" the Pope asked. Agca nodded. The two men seated themselves, close together, on molded-plastic chairs in a corner of the cell, out of earshot. At times it looked almost as if the Pope were hearing the confession of Agca, a Turkish Muslim. At those moments, John Paul leaned forward from the waist in a priestly posture, his head bowed and forehead tightly clasped in his hand as the younger man spoke.

Agca laughed briefly a few times, but the smile would then quickly fade from his face. In the first months after the assassination attempt, there had been in Agca’s eyes, a zealot's burning glare. But now his face wore a confused, uncertain expression, never hostile.

The Pope clasped Agca’s hands in his own from time to time, at other times he grasped the man's arm, as if in a gesture of support.

John Paul’s words were intended for Agca alone. "What we talked about will have to remain a secret between him and me, the Pope said as he emerged from the cell. I spoke to him as a brother whom I have pardoned, and who has my complete trust."

As John Paul rose to leave, the two men shook hands. The Pope gave Agca a small gift in a white box, a rosary in silver and mother-of-pearl. Then the Pope walked out.

Seven years later, in 2000, Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, in agreement with Pope John Paul II, pardoned Agca. On hearing of the amnesty, Chief Vatican Spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said John Paul was satisfied with Ciampi’s action. He said, "As you know, John Paul II immediately pardoned his attacker and for some time now the pope had told Italian authorities that he was in favor of an act of clemency if Italian law permitted it. He has been insisting on this for some time. We are not surprised. We are very happy."

"There will be no escape from wars, from hunger, from misery, from racial discrimination, from denial of human rights, and not even from missiles, if our hearts are not changed," said the late Italian writer and lifetime Senator Carlo Bo. "The Pope intends to say, ‘If we really want peace, we must make the first step, we must forget offenses and offer the bread of love and charity.’"

In February, 2005, when the Polish Pope was hospitalized at Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome with the flu, Mehmet Ali Agca sent a handwritten letter in Italian to Pope John Paul II wishing him "a speedy recovery."

2008: AGCA'S STRANGE REQUEST

On Thursday, the 1st of May, which is a Labor Day in Poland, Mehmet Ali Agca submitted his application for Polish citizenship to the Polish Embassy in Ankara through his lawyer Haci Ali Ozhan. The first to report this was Susan Frazer, an Associated Press correspondent, who filed her story on Friday, May 2, with the support of an AP writer in Warsaw, Monika Scislowska.

"I am not a stranger to your country because the national hero of Poland, Pope Karol Wojtyla, is my spiritual brother," Agca said, referring to John Paul by his baptismal name. I shall be proud of becoming a member of the noble Polish nation, if my request to be granted Polish citizenship is accepted," he declared in his petition to the President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, a devout Roman Catholic, whom he asked to support his application.

The unexpected request of the former gunman, who has spent 19 years in Italian prisons and now is serving a 10-year sentence in Turkey for murder and bank robbery, evokes surprise and mixed feeling—not only in Poland. The Associated Press asked for comment from Piotr Paszkowski, the Foreign Ministry spokesman and a personal friend of Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski. Paszkowski diplomatically replied that "The condition for according Polish citizenship is residence in Poland for at least five years, prior to applying." This rule, he added, "can be waived if the foreigner seeking Polish citizenship has special merits for the country, has done good service to Poland. Agca rather has not," he concluded.

Mr. Ozhan, Agca's lawyer, said he would complete his client’s application this week, due to some missing paperwork. President Lech Kaczynski did not express his opinion thus far.

For formal reasons, the former assassin’s application for Polish citizenship could be quickly rejected. But many Poles, writing comments on the popular Internet site http://www.Onet.pl  expressed different opinions:

"I wonder," wrote a retired woman, "what he was punished for. If he was merely a tool in God’s hands, that means he was not guilty. The Pope himself said that the prophecy [of Fatima] had been fulfilled. He [Agca] should be granted the citizenship and an apology."

"Since John Paul II pardoned him, we also should leave him in peace. Our Pope surely would like that. He [Agca] could return us by converting to Catholicism and by exposing the true masters of the [assassination] plot from the KGB," wrote a young, 23-year-old man.

"Let’s give him a chance! He should have identical chances as every other man applying for Polish citizenship! He has completed his prison term [for the assassination attempt against the Pope] and he wouldn’t be so foolish to commit crimes again. All people will know about him and everybody will watch him [in Poland]. If your main argument against granting him citizenship is that he has shot at the Pope, the fact that the Pope himself pardoned him should be enough. And his choice of Poland could be influenced by this. If I’m not in error, there have been similar cases of conversions in the past, even [described] in the Bible."

But not all readers of the surprising news supported Agca’s request:

"Look, this declaration is meant to turn the attention from the real perpetrators of the attempt against the Pope," wrote another Pole.

"Never! Let him keep off Poland. If I would meet such a guy in a street, he would be finished. And what would you do?"

"There should be set conditions. When a foreigner wants to emigrate to Canada or to Australia, he or she has to fulfill definite conditions, fill in several inquiry sheets, has to prove that he/she will make a good worker and citizen. And that fellow thinks he is so important and so well known that it’s enough for him to present his wish, and that would be accepted in spite of the committed crimes. A big EGO indeed! Most probably his true motive is that he has still to languish in jail for having killed a journalist in Turkey, and he would like to avoid that," wrote a Polish woman.

Among foreign voices, I have found this opinion:

"Agca to become a Polish citizen? Sometimes I come across a story that is confusing. Other times the story is just plain odd. This one is a bit of both," wrote an American Catholic blogger.

What do you think? Should we pardon Mehmet Ali Agca and allow him to spend the rest of his life in Poland? His criminal past has already cost him more than 25 years in jail. Isn’t that enough?

Should we expect from the former would-be assassin of the late Polish Pope his conversion to the Catholic religion or let him remain a Muslim? How should Mehmet Ali Agca compensate to the Polish nation and to the world for his crimes? What do we expect him to do?

BETWEEN FORGIVENESS AND VENGEANCE

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), the late nonviolent leader of India once said, expressing his anger at the misbehavior of the then British colonialists, "I do like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Christians are so unlike your Christ!"

An Indian columnist, Dayanand Edappally, wrote in her recent article "Tooth for Tooth" (April 20, 2008), "Forgiveness may not be tangible and immediate. But in the long run, forgiveness is far more productive than retaining ideas of vengeance. The world needs a healing touch of forgiveness and peace."

Not knowing of Mehmet Ali Agca’s decision, she reiterated, "When Pope John Paul II was shot by Mehmet Agca, he went to Agca’s prison and forgave him. This forgiveness was world news at that time. The Pope gained in stature by his act of magnanimity. And Agca repented." Then she concluded, "In the Old Testament, the Israelites had a strict moral code, which advocated a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye. Injury had to be repaid in kind. Insult was not to be forgiven. The New Testament, however, has a different set of morality. Concerning retaliation, Jesus said, "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. On another occasion he also taught: The law was made for humankind, and not humankind for the law. Norms should not deter people from doing well. They should promote kindness, compassion, empathy."

WHOM TO BLAME?

The unsolved mystery of the May 13, 1981, and other attempts at the life of John Paul II tear and bleed our memory like a thorn. Who is to blame for these plots and acts of violence on St. Peter’s Square in Rome, in the Vatican, Poland, in Pakistan? As the years pass by, the evidence becomes more and more unattainable. But the facts and logical assumptions inevitably point to the Kremlin and Lubianka Square [KGB] and to "The Aquarium," the Main Intelligence Directorate [GRU], all places in Moscow, as the source of the plots against the late Polish Pope. Many books have been written to prove these traces, including the most recent book, "It's About the Pope: Spies in the Vatican" ["Chodzi o papieza: Szpiedzy w Watykanie"] by a veteran American journalist, researcher and former U.S. military intelligence officer John O. Koehler, published in Poland on April 28 of this year. This book, based on Polish, Italian, German and other sources, describes an enormous effort made by the Soviet leadership to counter the fast-growing influence of the Roman Catholic pope in the then Communist-dominated Eastern Europe and the world.

A leading Polish weekly Wprost [Direct], in a series of articles written by its investigative journalists, exposed the complicated deception game directed from the Kremlin to hide Soviet responsibility. Some of these articles have been mentioned in my own stories, published by the Canada Free Press (CFP), such as: "New investigation: KGB behind all plots to assassinate John Paul II"; "Ali Agca’s Secret Services" (2006) and "Plot to kill John Paul II: General Giuseppe Cucchi Confirms New Evidence"; "New evidence about the plot to kill John Paul II in 1981" (2007) and the most recent in 2008, "A Moscow Contract on Pope John Paul II."

My own research into the May 13, 1981, attempt against John Paul II, conducted from the very day of Agca’s shooting until now, proved that the plots against the Polish Pope had originated in instructions of the Soviet leadership from the late 1970s and were carried out under the supervision of the two main Soviet special services: the KGB and the GRU. The links between the Turkish extreme-right Grey Wolves and the Bulgarian secret services had been used to instruct, guide and finance Mehmet Ali Agca and other assassins. A strange blend of Soviet spies, Bulgarian spies and Turkish extremists, supported by Palestinian Arab terrorists and some Arab and Muslim intelligence services was used to hide the true "contractors" from the Kremlin and to put the blame on "hired guns" like Mehmet Ali Agca and Oral Celik, and on Turkish drug mafia bosses. The Bulgarians, Sergei Antonov, Zheluyu Vassilev and Todor Ajvazov, provided cover and logistic support to them under supervision of the GRU station in Rome.

There was also a "Polish trail" to the attempt of the 13th of May, 1981, and to other hostile actions against the Polish Pope. Polish secret service, the Służba Bezpieczeństwa (SB), had their spies in the Vatican and some agents were present on St. Peter’s Square on the very day and moment of the shooting. The most astonishing fact (uncovered by Wprost’s investigative reporters Indulski and Jakimczyk) was that the then Polish Communist Military Intelligence (WSW-WSI) had learned about the supposed time and place of the attempt in April, 1981, only a few weeks before Agca’s shootout at the pope. The probable source of this information was a Polish intelligence agent in Syria. The astonishing fact was that the news about the secret note passed by a Polish military attaché Colonel Bak to his Italian counterpart, Col. Cucchi, in Cairo had been quickly leaked to the secret services of the Warsaw Pact. Giuseppe Cucchi, now a top-ranking general of the Italian services, in a personal interview with the Polish weekly’s journalists in Rome denied any links to the KGB or the GRU. He said that the tape with Col. Bak’s recorded warning might have been passed to the Soviets by a mole in the Italian intelligence.

One could only conclude basing on all these mishaps that the prophecy from Fatima had to be fulfilled. The bullet from Agca’s gun was later placed by John Paul II in the Virgin Mary Shrine in Fatima, Portugal. Let me repeat the words of the Pope, uttered after the December 27, 1983, meeting with Mehmet Ali Agca in Rebbibia Prison: "I had a feeling that I would survive. I was in pain, I had reason to be afraid, but I had this strange feeling of confidence."