7-details/Papal+assass
in+warns+Pope+Benedict+his+ ‘life+is+in+danger’+if+he+visits+Turkey/artic
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London, Wednesday 20.09.06
Papal assassin warns Pope Benedict his ‘life is in danger’ if he visits
Turkey
20.09.06
Pope Benedict faces a growing chorus of demands to make an unequivocal
apology for remarks seen as portraying Islam as a violent faith, despite
attempts by Western leaders and churchmen to defuse the crisis.
The calls came as it emerged papal hitman Mehmet Ali Agca, who is
serving a life sentence for the attempted assassination of Pope John
Paul II in May 1981, has written to Pope Benedict XVI from jail, warning
him not to go to Turkey as planned in November in the light of his
remarks.
Agca, a Turk gave his ominous warning in a letter to an Italian daily
newspaper.
For many Muslims, the Pope’s attempt to explain himself on Sunday did
not go far enough and observers were waiting to see if he would speak
about it again at his general audience at the Vatican.
The Pope enraged Muslims in a speech a week ago in Germany quoting 14th
century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything the
Prophet Mohammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the
sword the faith he preached".
The leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics said on Sunday he
was ‘deeply sorry’ for the reaction caused – but stopped short of
apologising for his words or retracting them.
In a telegram to the order of an Italian nun killed in Somalia who may
be the crisis’ first victim, the Pope hoped her sacrifice would help
build "real fraternity among people with reciprocal respect of
everyone’s religious convictions".
But the deluge of criticism and threats continued. Italian media said an
al Qaeda group in Egypt called for the German-born Pope, who is 79, to
be punished by strict Islamic sharia law for insulting their religion.
An al Qaeda umbrella group in Iraq has also vowed war on "worshippers of
the cross".
Workers at Turkey’s Directorate General for Religious Affairs, or
Diyanet, petitioned for the arrest of the Pontiff when he makes a
scheduled visit to Turkey in November.
They held banners saying "Either apologise or don’t come". The Pope’s
comments annoyed the Turkish government but there are no plans yet to
cancel the trip.
In Iraq, where an effigy of the Pope was burnt on Monday, parliament
speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani called his apology "inadequate and not
commensurate with the moral damage caused to Muslims’ feelings".
The Grand Mufti of the Palestinian Territories, Sheikh Mohammad Hussein,
said the Pope must make "a personal and clear apology to 1.5 billion
Muslims in this world for the insult caused by his lecture…"
In his two page letter to leading Italian Rome based daily La
Repubblica, Agca, who was a member of the Turkish terrorist cell the
White Wolves, wrote: "Pope Ratzinger listen to someone who knows these
things very well.
"Your life is in danger. You absolutely must not come to Turkey. Pope
Benedict you must know that between 1980 and 2000 I was in contact with
various Western intelligence services and with the Vatican.
"In those twenty tears I learnt many things and I came into possession
of many classified secrets."
The letter closed with Agca imploring Pope Benedict to resign for his
own safety he wrote: "For your own welfare you must make a grand gesture
of honour and resign.
"Then you must return to your native land (Germany) and in your place an
Italian cardinal can be elected Pope, possibly (cardinal Dionigi)
Tettamanzi or (cardinal Tarcisio) Bertone.
"Then the Vatican should become a centre of peace and fraternity. The
world has a need of this it does not need hatred and vendetta."
Agca was jailed for his attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in
St Peter’s Square in May 1981 and in 2000 he was allowed to return to
Turkey to serve the rest of his sentence.
Earlier this year he was briefly freed from his life sentence after a
judge released him but after a huge outcry he was jailed again within
days and is now at Istanbul’s Kartal Maltepe jail and not due for
release until 2012.
In Italy, politicians and churchmen defended the Pope and said his words
were taken out of context and his explanation was quite clear.
Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano published it in Arabic on its
front page to try to clarify his meaning.
But while some Muslim clerics say the alleged insults are the latest
skirmish in a new Western ‘crusade’ against Islam, some Catholic
churchmen say the Pontiff’s words have been purposefully twisted by
militant Muslims.
"We pray for the Pope whose words have been maliciously interpreted,"
Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe said in Naples at the annual ‘miracle’ of
fourth century Saint Gennaro, whose blood turns from powder to liquid in
what is seen as a good omen.
The head of Australia’s 5.1 million-strong Catholic church went as far
as to say that violent reaction "justified one of Pope Benedict’s main
fears" about Islam.
Cardinal George Pell said this showed "the link for many Islamists
between religion and violence, their refusal to respond to criticism
with rational arguments, but only with demonstrations, threats and
actual violence". Local Muslims called Pell’s comments ‘unhelpful’.
(c) 2006 Associated Newspapers Ltd