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Man who shot at Pope John Paul freed

Facing mounting criticism, Turkish Government says it will review the release

— Photo: AP

OUT OF JAIL: Mehmet Ali Agca (right), the Turkish gunman who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, is escorted by a Turkish police officer as he leaves a military recruitment centre after he was released from prison in Istanbul, Turkey, on Thursday.

ISTANBUL: Facing mounting criticism, the Turkish Government said it would review Thursday's release from prison of the man who shot at Pope John Paul II in 1981.

Mehmet Ali Agca quickly slipped away, disappearing out of the back door of a military hospital and leaving behind hordes of journalists — along with questions about whether he will be forced to complete the mandatory army service he dodged as a young man.

Hours after his release, which was cheered by scores of ultranationalist supporters who tossed flowers at Agca's car, Justice Minister Cemil Cicek ordered a review to see whether any errors were committed in freeing him. He said Agca would remain free until an appeals court reviewed the case.

``If there is an error, that would damage Turkey's image'' as the nation pushes to join the European Union, said Ilter Turan, a political scientist at Istanbul's Bilgi University.

Mr. Cicek said Agca's release was not ``a guaranteed right,'' noting there had been several cases in which convicts released by mistake were returned to prisons. He said Agca benefited from amnesties, passed by previous governments, which had freed tens of thousands of criminals over the past decades.

Agca, wearing a bright blue sweater and jeans, was freed five years after he was pardoned by Italy and extradited to Turkey. He served 20 years in Italy, where John Paul forgave him in a visit to his prison cell in 1983.

Agca shot at the Pope as he rode in an open car in St. Peter's Square in Rome on May 13, 1981, and was captured immediately. The pontiff was hit in the abdomen, left hand and right arm, but recovered because the bullets missed vital organs.

Mr. Cicek said a military court had ordered Agca's execution in 1980 for murdering prominent Turkish journalist Abdi Ipecki but it was commuted to life in prison in 2002, after Turkey abolished the death penalty. The life in prison was translated into 36 years.

Mustafa Demirbag, the gunman's lawyer, said the local court which ordered Agca's release last week, deducted his time in Italy and his time in Turkey, where he previously served six months before escaping from a prison in 1979.

Ipekci's family objected to the decision to release Agca, but another local court in Istanbul ruled this week that his release was lawful, Mr. Cicek said.

After his release, Agca — who initially was handcuffed — reported to a military recruitment centre. As he left, uncuffed, he handed a journalist a photocopy of a Time magazine cover showing him with the pope and the headline: ``Why forgive?''

Agca, who had dodged the draft in the 1970s, then went for a routine checkup at a military hospital, from where he slipped away through a back door only used by high military commanders. His whereabouts were not immediately known. — AP

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