Turkey Arrests Mobster Tied to Attack on Pope

Authorities today said that they have arrested and imprisoned Bekir Celenk, a reputed Turkish mobster charged with involvement in a plot to kill Pope John Paul II.

Celenk was brought to Ankara from Istanbul in police custody and was being held in Mamak outside Ankara.

The charges against Celenk, 50, were not immediately revealed, but they apparently were related to smuggling because the warrant was issued by the court handling smuggling cases. In Turkey, charges are usually contained in an indictment, issued before the start of a trial.

An officer in the legal department of the Istanbul martial law command said earlier that Celenk was under investigation for alleged arms and narcotics smuggling.

Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish terrorist who shot the Pope on May 13, 1981, has claimed that Celenk acted as an intermediary for a Soviet diplomat in Bulgaria to offer $1.2 million to Agca and two other Turks, Musa Serdar Celebi and Oral Celik, to kill the pontiff.

Serving Life Sentence

Agca is the star witness in the Rome trial of the three Bulgarians and four Turks accused of complicity in the papal assassination attempt. Agca is serving a life sentence for shooting the Pope in St. Peter’s Square.

Celenk is wanted by Italy both for trial on complicity charges in the Pope’s shooting and on arms and drug-smuggling charges. But Turkey has announced that Celenk will not be sent to Italy because Turkish laws bar extradition of a Turkish national to another country.