Word: antonov
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...believed to have been set by Hitler's agents and blamed on Communists, thus helping to consolidate Nazi power. Said the Soviet newsman: "Half a century later, antisocialists are [again] preparing a war against the socialist community." A day later, Radio Moscow predicted confidently that Sergei Ivanov Antonov, one of the Bulgarians fingered by Agca, would be released after testimony from witnesses that Antonov had been at his Balkan Airlines office at the time of the shooting. TASS implicitly dismissed speculation that the Soviets were motivated to kill the Pope by his support of Poland's Solidarity trade...
...confession that were leaked to Rome newspapers, Agca says that he escaped from a Turkish jail in 1979 with the aid of a Turkish terrorist who allegedly worked for the Bulgarians. Agca went to Bulgaria and then to Rome, where he met three Bulgarians, including Sergei Ivanov Antonov, the head of the local office of Bulgaria's Balkan Airlines. Later, apparently, he was offered $ 1.25 million to kill the Pope...
Italian authorities arrested Antonov earlier this month in Rome, and at Italy's request, West German police picked up another suspect in Frankfurt. The Italians also put out an arrest warrant for a former secretary to the Bulgarian military attaché and for an accountant at the Bulgarian embassy. The Bulgarian connection is further corroborated by telephone numbers that Agca gave to Italian authorities, which match those of Antonov's airline office and the Bulgarian embassy in Rome...
...case against the Bulgarians, however, remains unproven. Agca has changed his story before, and his latest narrative contains apparent inconsistencies. For example, he described Antonov as wearing a beard, but Antonov has apparently always had a mustache. Although photographs taken at the time of the assassination attempt show a man who looks strikingly like Antonov standing only a few yards from the Pope, Antonov's lawyer says that he can prove that his client was not in St. Peter's Square at the time of the shooting...
Shortly before Antonov was arrested, Pope John Paul moved to help clear up another Vatican-related mystery. After the death last June of Milan Banker Roberto Calvi, there were revelations about curious connections between Calvi's Banco Ambrosiano and the Istituto per le Opere de Religione (I.O.R.), better known as the Vatican bank. In a papal letter, John Paul last week indicated that the Holy See would be ending its dependence on investment and speculation for its funds and would rely instead on "the spontaneous contributions of the faithful and of other men of good will...