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Catholic World News News Feature

Soviets ordered papal assassination: Italian report March 02, 2006

An Italian government investigation has concluded that leaders of the Soviet Union ordered the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in May 1981.

A report prepared for the Italian parliament, due for presentation later in March, was released in Rome on March 2 by Paolo Guzzanti, the president of the investigating committee. The report concludes that Soviet leaders were "beyond any reasonable doubt" the force behind the assassination attempt.

Immediately after the shooting on May 13, 1981, Vatican officials privately voiced their suspicions of Soviet involvement. After the arrest of Mehmet Ali Agca, Italian prosecutors attempted to link the Turkish gunman to Bulgarian state officials, who were believed to be acting on orders from Moscow. But prosecutors were unable to provide sufficient evidence to prove their case.

The new Italian parliamentary report reinforces the prosecutor's original case against Sergei Antonov, who was working in the Rome office of Bulgaria's state-owned airline at the time of the assassination attempt. Antonov, who denied any involvement, had testified that he was in his office on the day of the shooting. The new Italian investigation reportedly discovered a photo taken of Antonov in the crowd in St. Peter's Square at the time of the fateful papal audience.

The Italian commission's report on the papal assassination bid is a product of a wider search into the archives of intelligence agencies in the Communist bloc. The report concludes that Soviet, Bulgarian, and East German agents were involved in plotting the attempt on the Pope's life.