Word: marini
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...that year in St. Peter's Square, was working for Bulgarian agents and, by implication, the Soviet Union. The ten-month trial of Agca's alleged accomplices--and of Agca himself for illegal possession of the pistol that he used to shoot the Pope--ended when Prosecutor Antonio Marini handed the case to the jury without a closing summary. "There were no new arguments for me to rebut," he explained later...
After 6 1/2 days of deliberation, the jury last week delivered its verdict. To the surprise of no one, the eight-member panel acquitted all three Bulgarian defendants on the technical grounds of insufficient evidence, following a formal recommendation made by Marini last month. Three of the Turkish defendants were acquitted on the same technicality. But one of them, Omer Bagci, was convicted of smuggling into Italy the Browning 9-mm semiautomatic pistol used in the shooting and was sentenced to three years in prison. Agca was also found guilty as charged and given an additional year in jail...
...began with a bang and seems likely to end with a whimper. The bang: the gunshots fired at Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981, by Turkish Terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca. The whimper: Italian Prosecutor Antonio Marini's recommendation last week that three Bulgarian defendants charged with complicity in the attack be acquitted on the technical ground of "insufficient evidence." If the court heeds Marini's advice when it hands down its verdict this month, the result will be a stunning blow to the * "Bulgarian Connection" theory, which maintained that Bulgarian intelligence services organized the papal attack...
...that, Marini seemed to believe that the Bulgarians were guilty. He rejected their alibis and complained of being denied access to key witnesses. He also came down hard on three Turks who are being tried in the case, asking life sentences for two and a 24-year term for the third. The Soviet Union, for its part, was jubilant over the call for the Bulgarians' acquittal. Radio Moscow said the recommendation proved that the conspiracy charges were fabricated by the CIA and its Western allies "to discredit Bulgaria and other socialist countries...
Bagci's testimony also brought out the names of four Turks previously unmentioned in connection with the case: Mahmut Inan, Eyup Erdem, Oezdemir Vandettim and Uenal Erdal. The men, Bagci said, had helped him pass on to Agca the pistol that was used to shoot the Pope. Marini expressed hope that the court's move to subpoena three more Turks, held elsewhere in Western Europe, would produce fresh testimony. One of the three, Mehmet Sener, was convicted last week in Switzerland on heroin-smuggling charges. The court is also seeking to question a Turk identified as Aslam Samet...