May 13, 1981 was an ordinary Wednesday. Shortly after five in the afternoon, the Pope John Paul II He crossed St. Peter’s Square with his white open car, greeting the multitude of believers. Suddenly, four shots were heard. Two bullets hit Podifika in the abdomen and his left handcausing severe bleeding. In addition, two women nearby were injured by the bullets. The perpetrator, Mehmet Ali Akkca, was arrested by the police on the spot.
“We listened to successive shots,” said Vatican Radio Station, Priest Roberto Tucci. “We saw the Holy Father injured. Fired on the floor of the car. Later, I saw the ambulance leaving the Vatican with the Holy Father heading to the hospital, “said priest Tucci.
“Another car with some of the officials from the Foreign Ministry was following,” Kathimerini said in her report the following day of the attempt. “”Pope reached out his hands toward the crowd when we suddenly heard two shots“, Said Katerina Damiani, from Rome, who was ten meters away from the Pope when he was injured.” I saw two blood grooves, “he said, noting that they were clearly visible in the Pope’s white silk clothing. Later it was stuck. “
Two years after the attack, Pontiff visited the perpetrator in Rome’s Rebibbia prison and personally forgiven him.
The Pope was rushed to Gemelli Hospital, where he underwent long surgery. Despite the seriousness of his wounds, he recovered and returned to his duties. Two years after the attack on December 27, 1983, visited the anga in the Rebibbia prison of Rome and forgive him personally. This act of forgiveness reinforced the image of the Pontiff as the ambassador of peace and reconciliation.
“Turkish Mehmet Ali Hagktsa, reportedly, had murdered, on February 2, 1979, the editor -in -chief of” Millieth “, Abdi Ipekci. Hagktsa, who was a member of the far -right “National Action Party” by Abaclan Turks, He had escaped, under strange circumstances, by the Turkish prison where he had been confined after Ipekci’s murder and in a letter he had warned that he would assassinate the Popewho was waiting for an official visit to Ankara on November 28, 1979, “the” Kathimerini “said about the perpetrator.
In 2006, an Italian parliamentary committee concluded that the Soviet Union was probably behind the assassination attempt.
After his escape from the Turkish prisons, Garca traveled to Europe with fake documents and ended up in Rome. The motives behind the Pope’s assassination attempt remain unclear. Garca initially claimed he acted alone, but He later said he had supported Bulgarian and Soviet secret services Because of the Pope’s support for the Polish trade union “Solidarity”, implying a wider conspiracy. In 2006, an Italian parliamentary committee concluded that the Soviet Union was probably behind the assassination attempt, although there was no uninterrupted evidence.
On the other hand, in the circles of the faithful, the murder of the Pontiff’s murder was another meaning. The attack occurred on May 13, a date coinciding with the first appearance of Our Lady in the three shepherds in Fatima, Portugal in 1917. Pope John Paul II believed that the Virgin of Fatima protected him that day. In a sign of gratitude, He donated the bullet that injured him to the sanctuary of Fatima, where he was placed on the crown of the Statue of Our Lady.
Column: Myrto Katsigera, Vassilis Minakakis, Antigoni-Despina Poumenidou, Athanasios Syroplakis
