KGB Planned Pope Assassination Attempt

(Hat tip to The Black Kettle for the link.) Agence France-Presse reports that documents found in the former East German intelligence files confirm that the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in 1981 was ordered by the Soviet KGB and then ordered Bulgarian agents to carry out the mission.

Bulgaria then handed the execution of the plot to Turkish extremists, including Mehmet Ali Agca, who pulled the trigger.

Ali Agca, who is now in jail in Turkey, claimed after his arrest that the operation was under the control of the Bulgarian embassy in Rome. The Bulgarians have always insisted they were innocent and argued that Agca's story was part of an anti-communist plot by the Italian secret service and the CIA.