Sergei Antonov, 59; Bulgarian named in a 1981 plot to kill pope

Sergei Antonov, 59, the Bulgarian accused of plotting a failed assassination bid on behalf of the Soviet Union against Pope John Paul II, was found dead in his Sofia apartment Wednesday, the Bulgarian Interior Ministry said. Doctors said Antonov had probably died two days earlier of natural causes.

A former representative of Bulgaria’s national airline in Rome, Antonov was accused, but later acquitted, of working as an agent for Bulgaria’s communist-era secret services, which were closely tied to the Soviet KGB, and planning the May 13, 1981, attack.

He stood trial with two other Bulgarians and three Turks for the attempted assassination, in which Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca shot the pope and was arrested minutes later. Before being convicted of attempted murder, Agca named Antonov as a co-conspirator.

But prosecutors could not prove the Bulgarian secret service had hired Agca to kill the pope on behalf of the Kremlin, which feared John Paul’s influence in events that would lead to the 1989 collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.

An Italian court acquitted Antonov in 1986 after a two-year trial, saying there was insufficient evidence for a conviction.

Antonov’s health and mental condition began to deteriorate, and he spent the rest of his life in isolation.

During a visit to Bulgaria in 2002, John Paul rejected allegations that Bulgaria’s former communist government was involved in the assassination attempt and said he had never believed in the so-called Bulgarian connection.