Freedom Wasn't So Sweet for Pope Shooter

Jan. 23, 2006 — -- Freedom wasn't so sweet for the pope's failed assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca.

Not sweet but short, definitely.

In the end, though, his brief exit from the walls of the maximum-security Kartal prison in eastern Istanbul may very well have been more painfully bitter than if he'd stayed put.

This weekend state prosecutors calculated that Agca actually has another four years to serve before he will complete his sentence for murdering a prominent Turkish newspaper editor two years before he tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981.

Agca was freed from jail on Jan. 12; he was taken back into custody on Jan. 20.He was silent and unsmiling as he walked out of the prison gate, congratulated by his guards and cheered by supporters who threw red and white carnations at his car.

Agca is a hero to some Turkish nationalists. But most Turks reacted with dismay and embarrassment when he walked free. In the face of that outrage, Turkey's justice minister promised to review the case. Last Friday Turkey's Supreme Court ordered that Agca return to jail, saying it was too early for him to walk free. And today it announced a new release date of Jan. 18, 2010.

The 48-year-old former right-wing gangster served 19 years in an Italian prison for the assassination attempt before he was pardoned at the pope's behest in 2000. Agca was then extradited to Turkey to serve time in an Istanbul jail for the 1979 murder of liberal newspaper editor Abdi Ipekci, as well as for other charges dating from the 1970s. Agca was associated with the dirtiest, most violent wing of the Turkish nationalist movement, although he was little more than a thug himself.

Under new Turkish laws, his time served in Italy was initially deducted from the 25 years left on his sentence in Turkey. But Turkey's Supreme Court ruled last Friday that this was not valid, paving the way for his return to jail.

And so his time as a free man added up to a grand total of eight days, minus a few hours in an army recruitment center to evaluate his fitness for the national military service he never served.

Today in Turkey, there are few people lamenting his poor change of fortune.