Italy Agca's Ever More Tangled Web

By Jill Smolowe

For two weeks, Mehmet Ali Agca had threatened to turn Italy's "trial of the century" into a three-ring circus. He repeatedly insisted that he was Jesus Christ. He refused to elaborate on his claim that there was an international plot to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981, declaring that further testimony would endanger his life. But last week Agca was suddenly all business. "I have decided to continue," the 27-year-old Turk briskly informed the Rome court where he and seven other defendants are standing trial, four of them in absentia, on charges related to the alleged conspiracy. Then, without prompting, Agca leveled his most startling allegation to date: "The order to kill the Pope came from the Soviet embassy in Sofia," he said slowly. "The first secretary of the Soviet embassy in Sofia paid 3 million marks."

It was the first statement by Agca directly linking the Soviet Union to the shooting in St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981. When Presiding Judge Severino Santiapichi expressed doubts about the statement, Agca dismissed the challenge with an offer. "I ask the court to show me the photos of all the personnel of the Soviet embassy at Sofia," he said. "I will surely recognize him." He went on to describe the alleged Soviet conspirator as being 5 ft. 11 in. tall, with a "long and full face," glasses, blond hair and a "sporting appearance."

In subsequent testimony, Agca continued his revelations. He said that the Soviet Union had commissioned Turkish terrorists to blow up Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, the U.S.-financed radio stations in Munich. When he was shown photographs of St. Peter's Square taken moments before he shot the Pope, Agca identified Bulgarian Defendant Sergei Antonov. It was the first time he had claimed that the former representative of Bulgaria's Balkan Airlines was in the square at the time of the shooting. Agca also accused Propaganda Due, a / secret Italian Masonic lodge, of the 1983 kidnaping of the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee in hopes of winning Agca's freedom through a prisoner exchange. He insisted that the girl was still alive.

The charges were tantalizing, but Agca's claims, as in earlier testimony, were tainted by reversals and errors. He said that the mysterious Soviet diplomat who purportedly put up the more than $1 million to kill the Pope went by the name of "Milenkov or Malenkov." During pretrial testimony, however, Agca had identified one "Malenkov" as a Bulgarian spy who had introduced him to a Soviet attache in Tehran in 1980. More baffling still, in January 1984 Agca said he had invented both Malenkov and the Soviet official. Last week Agca described the bombing of the radio stations as having taken place in late 1980; the stations were actually attacked in February 1981. The dramatic identification of Antonov lost much of its effect when Agca admitted 20 minutes later, "It is possible I am mistaken." He also seemed to mock his own charges against the Masonic lodge when he insisted that the organization "knew with certainty that I am Jesus Christ." Judge Santiapichi interrupted, "Let us leave aside your divine powers."

The constant reversals continued to cast doubt on Agca's credibility. "Agca never tells the same story twice," Giuseppe Consolo, Antonov's attorney, complained last week. Even Judge Santiapichi seemed tired of Agca's game of cat and mouse. "How do I know which are the lies: the old version or the new?" he wearily asked the Turk. A bit upset himself, Agca retorted, "I am all alone against everyone else."

With reporting by Roberto Suro/Rome