The World - News from March 13, 1988

Italy has rejected two appeals for the pardon of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman serving a life sentence for attempting to kill Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square in May, 1981, judicial sources in Rome said. They said the appeals were made by Agca’s mother when she visited her son in jail last year, but both were rejected the same year. Agca shot and seriously wounded the pontiff, who subsequently met his assailant in a Rome prison and publicly said he had forgiven him. Agca’s mother was quoted in an Italian magazine last year as saying that the Pope had asked President Francesco Cossiga to pardon Agca.