Word: italianize
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Revelations continue to emerge about the thesis that the 1981 shooting of Pope John Paul II was the result of a conspiracy. The most spectacular assertion in a secret, 1,243-page report submitted to Italian authorities last week by Judge Ilario Martella was that a second would-be assassin, besides Turkish Terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca, fired at the Pontiff in St. Peter's Square. According to Martella, the second gunman was Oral Celik, 25, a Turk described as Agca's closest friend, who has not been seen since the day of the shooting. Agca told Martella that...
Among them is Zhelio Vassilev, a former official of the Bulgarian embassy in Rome, who is currently in Sofia and thus beyond the reach of Italian law. Martella relates that according to Agca, Vassilev urged at a May 10, 1981, meeting of the conspirators that the shooting be carried out as soon as possible. According to Agca, Vassilev emphasized urgency be cause "French and Rumanian secret services . . . had come to know about the possibility of [the assassination], and that the news had probably been given to them by some Bulgarian who played a double-cross." Martella reports that "many confirmations...
...dozen victims of extortion were induced to cooperate. Attorney General William French Smith announced "the decimation of organized-crime leadership" in the nation. That assessment may have been grandiose, but the arrests did mean that pressure on the Mafia was continuing in both the U.S. and Italy. Last week Italian police arrested 54 organized-crime members, bringing the total detained there to 126 in the past month...
...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...
...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...