Italy Agca's Ever More Tangled Web

Contradictions and errors cloud the Turk's tantalizing testimony

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,...

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