Former Judge Ilario Martella, who in the 1980s was at the center of investigations into the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, has just released a new book that attempts to correct the record and shed new light on one of the most earth-shattering events of the 20th century.
For more than 40 years, the assassination attempt on John Paul II has been the subject of much debate and controversy, particularly surrounding the potential involvement of Soviet agents. Martella’s book points toward a massive disinformation campaign orchestrated by the Soviet bloc which, while it initially succeeded in muddying the waters, is now coming unraveled.
On May 13, 1981, a Turkish terrorist named Mehmet Ali Agca opened fire on the Pope in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican City. He struck John Paul II twice, gravely but not mortally wounding the pontiff along with two other bystanders.
Agca was quickly arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment in July 1981. Initially, the mainstream media insisted that Agca, a Turkish Islamic terrorist, was a lone wolf who attempted to assassinate the Pope.
But questions soon arose about Agca’s motivations and potential accomplices – and here is where the controversy and web of disinformation began.
While in custody, Agca said that he had been in contact with a Bulgarian agent in Rome, and confessed to Martella that Bulgaria, which was then part of the Soviet Union, was involved in the attack. Ferdinando Imposimato, another investigator and a judge, confirmed to me directly in an interview in 2006 that Agca attested that he had not acted alone.
Agca shared details about the plot with the court which implicated the Bulgarian secret police, the KGB, and individuals posing as Bulgarian diplomats in Italy. Martella further confirmed in his new book that a Bulgarian diplomatic vehicle, which the assassins intended to use to flee Italy, departed Rome shortly after Agca’s arrest, while Bulgarian embassy officials also left.
Agca also said that the plan was for him and back-up gunman Oral Celik to open fire on the Pope before escaping to the Bulgarian embassy. Following the shooting, Lowell Newton, a news editor for a Detroit TV station, was in St. Peter’s Square as a tourist and took a photograph of a man he said was carrying a pistol and running from the square shortly after the Pope was shot. Later, Lowell and Agca positively identified Celik as the man in the photo.
Judge Martella’s book details how, just two days after the failed assassination, the Kremlin ordered the East German secret police, the Stasi, to launch a disinformation operation, codenamed “Operation Pope,” to mask the Soviet connections to the shooting. As Martella writes, “they [the Soviets] realized that by revealing the Bulgarian connection, the assassin [Agca] became the Pope’s main ally in the war against communism.”
Operation Pope, according to Martella, involved media manipulations, killings, and kidnappings – including the famous cases of Emanuela Orlandi and Mirella Gregori– to divert attention from the “Bulgarian connection” and shift blame to the CIA as the force behind the attack.
The narrative widely circulated by the Stasi claimed that the CIA employed American journalist Claire Sterling and Paul Henze, the CIA’s Chief of Staff in Turkey, to construct the Bulgarian connection. Henze had notably called Bulgarian communists “Moscow’s mercenaries,” while Sterling had a history of exposing how the Soviets had used criminals to advance their political aims, including by carrying out assassinations.
Also as part of Operation Pope, the Stasi attempted to discredit the investigators like Judge Martella who were pursuing the Bulgarian connection. The narrative the Stasi seeded in the Western media was that Martella was servile to “the corrupted elites in the USA” and “the Washington war machine.” Martella received multiple death threats which, according to him, “implied that the Stasi kept him and his family under constant surveillance.”
Another part of Operation Pope was to secure the release of Sergei Antonov, a Bulgarian working in Rome for Balkan Air who was also arrested based on Agca’s testimony and charged in the plot to murder the pope. Antonov revealed deep knowledge about the preparation for the assassination attempt. Another of Lowell’s photos showed Antonov in St. Peter’s Square on the day of the assassination.
However, Antonov was later acquitted following a three-year long trial. A key factor in his release, as Martelladescribes, was Agca’s shocking recanting of his testimony implicating Antonov, which the defense used to secure his release. Italian investigators and judges were devastated by this development. It was clear to many of them that the Soviet bloc led by Moscow attempted to assassinate the Pope. But without declaring Antonov guilty, the court could not publicly announce it.
In his book, Martella quotes Stasi high officer Gunther Bohnsack, who admitted in 2009 that his team aided in facilitating Operation Pope. Bohnsack adamantly stated in 2009 that “the Soviet bloc insisted on Antonov’s release” due to his “weak-nerved and demoralized” state, fearing that he could potentially “let the cat out.”
“Antonov’s ‘cat’ unequivocally represents the complete truth about the plot against the Pope,” Judge Martellawrites.
In the mid-2000s, a document from Bulgarian special services further confirmed that Sergei Antonov, as an agent of communist secret intelligence, was Ali Agca’s accomplice in an attack against the Pope. Martella also included in his book a letter from Agca in which the Turk regrets he “ruined the trial,” by recanting his testimony about his Bulgarian accomplices.
For more than four decades, the deception and misdirection seeded by the Soviet Union has taken hold. But thanks to Martella’s research and first-hand account, the truth is now beginning to reveal itself, and the involvement of the Soviet regime in the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, long suspected, is now being confirmed as historical fact.
Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.
