World Notes Italy

During 2 1/2 days of often contradictory testimony in a Rome courtroom, Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981, gave the first courtroom explanations last week of where he learned his deadly skills. Agca declared that in 1977 he had been trained by "Bulgarian and Czech experts" in a camp in Latakia, Syria. He said that he and other Turkish terrorists, together with trainees from France, Italy, Spain and West Germany, were instructed in the use of guns and bombs. Then he added: "I affirm with certainty that the Soviet Union is the political-financial center of international terrorism."

Agca, who along with seven other defendants faces charges related to a conspiracy to assassinate the Pope, also told presiding Judge Severino Santiapichi how he had purchased the weapon that was at one point passed to Defendant Omer Bagci and eventually used in the shooting. Agca refused to discuss previous claims of Bulgarian complicity in the plot, beyond assertions that "Bulgaria is guilty" and that he had been "threatened by the secret services of the Soviet Union and Bulgaria."