2024-05-01 20:03:36
Elena Rossi tells in a book how the pope’s assassin was prepared for his versions by intelligence agents
Many were surprised when they found out years ago that Mehmet Ali Agca, the assassin of Pope John Paul II, married Elena Rossi from the city of Ravenna in 2015. The 56-year-old Italian woman, who graduated from Apennine Political Science and Philosophy, today lives in Turkey with the 66-year-old former member of the “Grey Wolves”. As reported by the Italian publication “Blitz Quotidiano”, Rossi has written a book in which he tells how the “in reality” the events surrounding the attack of May 13, 1981, and how the “Bulgarian trace” in it was fabricated. Agja’s wife has not yet published her work, but she tells its content in an interview with the journalist and writer Pino Nicotri – he is author of many investigations and books on the crime against John Paul II.
According to the Italian, three publishers considered publishing, but were worried about possible criminal cases. Rossi cites specific names of important people who are still alive and were involved in setting up the various tracks – from the Bulgarian to the Vatican.
Elena Rossi justified her choice to write a book with her will to put order in the chaos of various theses and lies on the subject, to which her husband Agja also contributed. In the first part of her book, the Italian tells about the attack on St. Peter’s Square, and in the second – about the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi and Mirella Gregory.
“I tried to clarify the ideological and, above all, the psychological motives that pushed my husband to the tragic gesture. The only guarantor of Agja must be sought in his inner demons, and perhaps in his fate.”
Rossi says about the Bulgarian trail, to which he pays a lot of attention, that it is totally false and that everything from it was suggested to the prisoner Agja. The author spoke at length about the Bulgarian Sergey Antonov, with the intention of being acquitted at least posthumously, since during his lifetime he was unjustly accused and sent to prison. “He had nothing to do with what happened in St. Peter’s Square and he never met Agja before the attack,” says Elena Rossi.
“In my book, I also deal with the never-planned assassination attempt against Lech Walesa, the head of the Solidarity trade union. And Ali was tipped off about it. On the contrary, neither the Bulgarians, nor the trade unionist Luigi Scricolo, nor anyone else intended to kill Walesa!
Rossi devotes a chapter in her book to the questioning of her husband by judge Carlo Palermo in February 1983, who realized how the Turk was completely prepared by someone for his versions. The Italian woman says that in order to write her book, she questioned her husband around the clock about all possible facts. However, she also spoke with Yalcin Ozbey, the other “witness”, who, like Agja, was “knowing” what to say. He was also the only one who at least partially confirmed the “Bulgarian trail” in the second trial.
Rossi also met Abdullah Chatla’s daughter and two friends of Oral Celik. All of them confirmed to her without hesitation Agja’s version – that the “Grey Wolves” had nothing to do with either the attack on the Pope or the abduction of Emmanuel Orlandi. Agja acted on his own initiative, without informing the least about his intentions, because feared that he might be stopped from doing something so sensational.
In the interview with Pino Nicotri, the Italian says that she devoted a lot of space in her book to the fact that on June 28, 1983, Agja renounced his previous words. This is what he was told to do by the same people who previously supplied him with wrong information about the home and family of Sergey Antonov. However, these details were revealed by the Bulgarian’s lawyer, Giuseppe Consolo. The question is to understand why they chose that date, or 6 days after Emanuela Orlandi’s disappearance, says Rossi.
“The Bulgarian-Soviet trail persisted for a long time and some still believe in it, but it is totally false. Ali Agja was shoed for her entirely in prison. In exchange for the accusation against the Bulgarian services, he was offered to be released after two years, or after the pardon by the President Sandro Pertini. However, the head of state did not bow to this dirty game,” says Elena Rossi.
When Pino Nicotri asked if it was true that during the trials in Rome, Agja wrote down names and facts on his palms to “push” to the magistrates about the “Bulgarian trail”, Elena Rossi answered that this was not necessary, because he remembered all by heart. “SISDE (the former internal secret services in Italy – note) certainly told Agja what to say through his official lawyer, who was connected to them. However, they were not acting on their own initiative, but were following orders from on high. During the trial, when it was already clear that there was an informer behind Agja, they tried, through the associate justice Giovanni Pandico, to throw the blame on the poor general Pietro Muzzumecchi and on the foreign intelligence SISMI, which had nothing to do with it,” Elena Rossi claims.
She also cites specific names from the Italian internal secret services, who imprisoned Agca for the “Bulgarian trail”. On December 29, 1981, in Ascoli Piceno prison, two representatives of SISDE – Alessandro Petrucelli and Luigi Bonagura, met with Agca on his behalf request, because he claimed to be guaranteed his release in exchange for charges against the Soviet bloc. Agja wanted an “official meeting”, not just the insinuations he had been receiving. The two representatives of the services explained to him that if he agreed to blame the Bulgarian services for the attack, the Pope would call on the president to pardon him and in a few years he would be a free man. So Ali Agja then accepted his offer.