Word: balkans
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...result of a conspiracy involving Bulgarian accomplices. Wearing jeans, a blue turtleneck sweater, tennis shoes and a stubby growth of beard, Agca looked tired and nervous as he retraced his steps under the watchful eyes of, among others, Judge Martella and defense attorneys for Sergei Antonov, the Balkan Airlines representative whom Agca has accused of complicity. In his guided tour, Agca made one seemingly minor but possibly important new revelation: he said that he had stopped in one of the shops along the square to buy film with which to take souvenir photographs of the Pope. One of Antonov...
...then worth $1.25 million) to kill the Pope by Bekir Celenk, a shadowy Turkish businessman with ties to his country's arms and drug smugglers. In Rome, Agca said, he met with three Bulgarians, including Sergei Ivanov Antonov, the head of the local office of Bulgaria's Balkan Airlines, to plan the papal assassination. According to Agca, Antonov drove him to St. Peter's Square on the day of the attempt. In November, Martella ordered the arrest of Antonov. According to Martella and other Italian officials, Agca's account has held up remarkably well. An Italian...
...warnings, which do not amount to formal charges, stem from Agca's statements to an Italian magistrate last fall that he had accomplices in his attempt on the Pope's life. Not only had Sergei Ivanov Antonov, the head of Bulgaria's Balkan Airlines office in Rome, and two embassy officials plotted the shooting of the Pope in May, Agca reportedly told investigating Judge Ilario Martella, they had also plotted the murder of Walesa when he journeyed to Rome four months earlier for his meeting with the Pontiff. Agca said an Italian union official was involved...
...conqueror. The two countries share the Cyrillic alphabet and speak similar languages. Though it is difficult to measure the affection felt by the Bulgarian people toward the Soviet government, there is no doubt about the official devotion of Sofia toward Moscow. As Todor Zhivkov, 71, leader of the Balkan country for the past 39 years, once characterized the relationship, "We will act as a common organism that has common lungs and a common circulatory system." Moscow, in turn, is so confident of the fealty of the country's 8.9 million people that no Soviet troops are stationed...
Given its reputation for Balkan intrigue, the country itself strikes visitors as remarkably serene. In Sofia, a charming if somewhat dowdy city of more than 1 million, main boulevards are lined with massive public edifices, and cobbled side streets are crammed with quaint but tumble-down houses of stucco and red tile. Although policemen can be seen directing traffic, the uniformed squadrons that patrol some other Soviet-bloc capitals are absent; if the police are out of sight, they can nonetheless appear on the scene when necessary. The coast along the Black Sea is dotted with hotels built to attract...