World Notes Italy

After years of preparation, one of the most complex and controversial criminal proceedings ever entered upon gets under way this week when eight men charged with conspiring to assassinate Pope John Paul II go on trial in Rome's criminal court. Mehmet Ali Agca, 27, the Turkish terrorist who was sentenced to life imprisonment after he shot the Pope in St. Peter's Square four years ago, is expected to be the central figure during the initial phases of the trial.

A major portion of Agca's testimony will undoubtedly focus on the so-called ( Bulgarian connection: the prosecution's contention that Agca and a co- conspirator were hired by three Bulgarians to carry out the killing. Only one of the three, Sergei Antonov, 46, ex-chief of the Balkan Bulgarian Airlines office in Rome, is being held by the Italians. The others, former officials of the Bulgarian embassy in Rome, Jelio Kolev Vassilev, 43, and Todor Sotyanov Ayvazov, 42, are back home and have refused to return to Italy. The Bulgarian government has said that it will fully cooperate with the Italians. That raises the possibility of moving the hearing to Sofia at some point to take the absent defendants' testimony. Negotiations over just such a shift are now in progress.