Word: antonov
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...major portion of Agca's testimony will undoubtedly focus on the so-called ( Bulgarian connection: the prosecution's contention that Agca and a co- conspirator were hired by three Bulgarians to carry out the killing. Only one of the three, Sergei Antonov, 46, ex-chief of the Balkan Bulgarian Airlines office in Rome, is being held by the Italians. The others, former officials of the Bulgarian embassy in Rome, Jelio Kolev Vassilev, 43, and Todor Sotyanov Ayvazov, 42, are back home and have refused to return to Italy. The Bulgarian government has said that it will fully cooperate with...
...Italian case. According to Agca, Celik should have had access to 3 million deutsche marks (then worth about $1.3 million) allegedly paid to the conspirators on behalf of the government of Bulgaria a week in advance of the abortive assassination attempt. Says Giuseppe Consolo, an attorney for Bulgarian Sergei Antonov, one of the accused conspirators: "It seems very strange that Oral Celik is engaged in small-scale smuggling in Switzerland when he is supposed to have been hired by the Bulgarians to kill the Pope and has 3 million deutsche marks in his pocket." Some involved with the case believe...
...fired by Celik, according to the judge. That slug was never found, but a reconstruction of its trajectory showed that it could not have been fired by Agca. Though Agca at first tried to protect Celik, who investigators say was "like a brother" to him, he eventually confessed that Antonov Celik was in the square, though only to create a diversion so that Agca could escape. Celik has not been seen since the day of the shooting. The Italian press speculated last week that he may have been killed by the Bulgarians to keep him from talking...
Perhaps the most important figure indicted last week is Sergei Ivanov Antonov, 36, head of Bulgaria's Balkan Airlines office in Rome at the time of the assassination attempt and allegedly the plot's leader. Antonov remained in Italy even after authorities began to investigate the "Bulgarian connection" and was arrested in November 1982. Two other suspects, Todor Aivazov, 40, and Zhelio Vassilev, 42, are former officials of the Bulgarian embassy in Rome. They had returned to Sofia by the time warrants were first issued against them and remain beyond the reach of Italian...
...terrorist, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 1981, has offered detailed descriptions of the Bulgarians' personal lives, even mentioning Antonov's fascination with his collection of liquor miniatures. But Agca also revised, retracted and contradicted many of his statements. As Martella said last week, "Agca is an unpredictable person capable of anything...