ISTANBUL - Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who attempted to assasinate Pope John Paul II in 1981, has asked Turkish authorities to briefly let him out of jail so he can attend the pontiff's funeral, his lawyer Mustafa Demirbag said Tuesday.
Demirbag said in a written statement that he had applied to the Justice Ministry to give Agca leave under a legal clause that allows certain prisoners to leave jail once a year.
Agca, who has been serving time at a high-security Istanbul jail since he was extradited to Turkey in 2000, qualifies for the leave as he has earned the right to be moved to a lower-security facility and has displayed good conduct, Demirbag said.
"That is why we are seeking four days of special leave, including travel time, for my client to attend the pope's funeral," the lawyer's statement read.
Agca, 47, said in a hand-written letter in Italian on Monday that he was mourning the death of the pope whom he desribed as a "spiritual brother".
He was 23 and on the run from the Turkish police when he opened fire on the pope at St. Peter's Square in 1981 as the pontiff headed for an audience in an open vehicle.
The pope was seriously wounded in the abdomen after the assassination attempt, whose motives remain murky, and Agca spent the next 19 years in Italian prisons before being extradited to Turkey in 2000.
Upon his return to Turkey, Agca, who was forgiven by John Paul II, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for a bank robbery committed in the 1970s and to life imprisonment for the murder of prominent Turkish journalist Abdi Ipekci.
The life sentence was later reduced to 10 years' imprisonment.
04/05/2005 11:34 GMT