History Daily: The Attempted Assassination of Pope John Paul II
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It's May 13th, 1981 in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican City. It's a sunny afternoon and Mehmet Ali Aca, a young man from Turkey, lingers among the crowd of pilgrims and tourists packed into the shadows of St. Peter's Basilica.

A white, open-topped car crawls slowly across the cobblestones. Standing in the back is Pope John Paul II. And as the car moves through the square, the Pope reaches down and touches the outstretched hands of the faithful. He blesses the crowd, speaking in several languages. All the while, Aja carefully tracks the Pope's movements. John Paul II is a relatively new Pope, having served only three years. And at 61, he's the youngest Pope in centuries.

That might be why he's more willing to take risks than his advisors would like. Journalists have commented that this weekly open-top car ride leaves him exposed to attack. But the Pope loves seeing his people face to face. It's energizing for him, and he believes that God will protect him from harm. Aja doesn't care about the Pope's reasons for his weekly outings, only that they happen because unlike every other person in the square, Aja is no pilgrim.

As the Pope's car draws near, Aja reaches into his jacket and cocks a 9mm Browning semi-automatic pistol hidden in his pocket. When the Pope is only feet away, Aja pulls out the gun and fires four shots in quick succession. The Pope cries out in pain, and St. Peter's Square erupts in chaos.

As the white car speeds off with a poke, Aja pushes his way through the crowd. He flings away his gun, hoping to escape in the chaos, but he feels a hand grabbing his shoulder and another snatching at his arm. A few brave pilgrims in the crowd are determined to stop him from escaping. Aja lashes out, trying to throw them off, but as soon as he loosens one person's grip, another takes hold. Aja wrestles desperately, but there are too many of them.

The pilgrims force him to the ground and restrain him as Vatican security forces close in. Of the four shots fired by Mehmet Ali Aja, one bullet passed through Pope John Paul II's torso. Another struck his left hand. The remaining two bullets hit people in the crowd. None of these wounds prove fatal.

But in the aftermath of this shooting, people all over the world wondered why someone would want to assassinate the Pope. Some theorized that Adjah was just a lone madman. Others think he's an agent sent by a foreign government. But no one knows for sure. And though in the months and years that follow, new facts will come to light, to this day, there are still many unanswered questions about what drove Mehmet Ali Adjah to shoot Pope John Paul II on May 13th, 1981.

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Fuel up at Shell. Download the Shell app to find a station today. From Noiser and Airship, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is History Daily. History is made every day. On this podcast, every day, we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world. Today is May 13th, 1981, the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II.

It's June 5th, 1979, at an airport in Warsaw, Poland, two years before the attempt on Pope John Paul II's life. Stepping out of a jet airplane, the Pope stops at the top of a staircase. Way on the tarmac below are dignitaries, camera crews, and thousands of adoring Poles. The Pope waves, walks down the staircase, kneels, and then kisses the ground.

Seeing this, the crowd roars. For the first time since he ascended to the papacy eight months earlier, John Paul II has come home. But it is a complicated homecoming. John Paul II is the first Polish pope in history, and he understands that the sway he holds over his countrymen is a potential challenge to Poland's communist rulers.

The Pope was born Karol Wojtyla in 1920, in a small city outside Krakow. He grew up middle class, the son of a military officer and a seamstress. But while his upbringing was initially comfortable, Karol was lucky to survive into adulthood. When he was 15, a friend jokingly fired a gun at him at close range, believing the pistol was unloaded.

The bullet only just missed. And then, in 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union both invaded Poland and divided the country between them. For four years, the teenage Karol had to work in a quarry in German-occupied Poland. He might have died during the war like so many other Poles were it not for the help of a local archbishop. The support Karol received from the church helped convince him that it was his calling to become a priest.

The USSR eventually joined the fight against Nazi Germany and drove the Germans out of Poland. But the young Karel never forgot how the Soviets had collaborated with the Nazis to invade his country. Now, 34 years after the end of World War II, Poland is technically independent, but it is a communist puppet state. And everyone knows that it lies firmly under the thumb of Moscow. Even the country's traditionally strong Catholicism is frowned upon. Poland is officially an atheist nation.

But the Polish people are restless. Wages have stagnated, and the price of basic goods like butter, meat, and sugar have risen substantially. This led to widespread protests in 1976, when strikes, demonstrations, and looting took place throughout the country.

The Polish government responded brutally, crushing the uprising. Helicopters circled overhead as tanks patrolled the streets, restoring order through brute force and intimidation. But no matter how much the communist government tightens its grip, it cannot control the minds of the Polish people. And as the Pope begins touring his homeland today, Poland's faith is soon on full display.

From the airport, Pope John Paul II is driven into Warsaw. Two million people line the streets as he drives by, chanting, Long live the Pope!

And when he reaches Victory Square in the center of Warsaw, the Pope gets out of his car in front of another enormous crowd. He climbs a staircase to an altar at the base of a 30-foot crucifix erected specially for his arrival. After years of communist rule, Poles are unaccustomed to such open displays of religion, and many weep at the sight. Standing at the altar, the Pope declares that outlawing religion anywhere in the world is an act of cruelty.

His speech is a direct challenge to Poland's communist government, which only allowed the Pope's visit because it feared that refusing it would lead to another widespread rebellion. But just hours into the tour, it seems like things might get out of hand anyway. Emboldened by the Pope's speech, the crowd begins to chant, We Want God.

And as the crowd whips into a frenzy, the Pope declares that those who fought to free Poland from Nazi Germany will never be truly honored until the country is truly independent. Again, the crowd erupts and communist government officials squirm. During his nine-day tour of Poland, the Pope delivers over 40 sermons, lectures, and addresses all over the country.

Wherever he goes, people chant, "We want God." And these words come to represent not only the Polish people's desire for religion, but also their desire for political freedom. So when the time comes for the Pope to board his plane and continue his European tour, he leaves behind an unspoken feeling that something has changed, that the Pope has reignited the flames of resistance in Poland.

Crucifixes and rosaries are suddenly transformed from Catholic tokens of faith into symbols of defiance. And a year after the Pope's visit, a Polish labor movement with millions of members will encourage the nation's industrial sector to strike and stand up to the Soviet Union. This will cause concern in Moscow.

And behind closed doors, Soviet officials would begin to discuss Pope John Paul II as a destabilizing force. So when he is shot in 1981, many will blame the USSR for the attempted assassination. The truth, though, will turn out to be far more complicated.

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It's May 13th, 1981, in a police station in Rome, just hours after Mehmet Ali Aja shot Pope John Paul II. Aja sits in a windowless cell. Handcuffed, he stares across a metal table at two Italian police officers who yell questions. Despite the bleak circumstances, though, Aja is smiling. He seems to enjoy being interrogated.

Aja has been acting unpredictably ever since he was arrested. When the police first started questioning him, he admitted to the crime immediately. But then he recanted and began confessing to other bizarre criminal plots which made no sense. He said he recently traveled to England with plans to assassinate the king, only to abandon the plot when he arrived and found that England has a queen.

Realizing that Aja's confessions might be unreliable, police begin looking for clues in his background. In Aja's hotel room in Rome, the police found a note which stated that by shooting John Paul II, he hoped to bring freedom to the people of El Salvador and Afghanistan. This, too, made little sense. It was the USSR who had invaded Afghanistan two years earlier in 1979. They'd also backed an uprising in El Salvador the same year.

But none of that seemed to have anything to do with the Catholic Church. It left investigators scratching their heads. Now, though, hours into the interrogation, Aja is finally telling what seems like a coherent story.

The Italian police learned that Aja is a Turkish Muslim with ties to an ultra-right-wing group called the Gray Wolves. Two years ago, Aja murdered the editor of a major left-wing newspaper in Istanbul. Afterwards, he went on the run for five months before being captured and sentenced to life in prison.

But he escaped, leaving behind a note in which he called the Pope an imperialist and a crusader and promised to kill him. Coincidentally, Pope John Paul II was due to visit Istanbul just four days later. Local police searched everywhere for Aja, but he was nowhere to be found, and the Pope's visit passed without incident.

At some point, Aja fled Turkey and traveled to Bulgaria, where he picked up a pistol and a fake passport. From there, he traveled between Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy, never staying in one place too long. When he arrived in Rome, he waited for the Pope's weekly public appearance and tried to make good on the threat he'd made two years earlier. But Aja's story leaves police with more questions than answers. And the investigators demand to know if he acted alone or if he's following orders from someone.

But at this stage, Aja has grown tired of the interrogation and refuses to say more until he stands trial. In the meantime, new theories begin circulating in the international media. A month after the attack, the Washington Star publishes an article alleging that the Soviet security agency, the KGB, hired Aja to shoot the Pope, hoping to prevent an uprising in Poland. Once these allegations gained traction, the Soviets then spread their own accusations that it was the United States behind the plot.

But there is no concrete evidence for either theory. So two months later, all eyes are on the Italian courtroom where Mehmet Ali Aja is to stand trial and maybe provide some answers. In court, Aja confesses once again. He declares himself a terrorist who makes no distinction between right and left-wing ideologies. He claims he acted alone, received no outside support, and paid his own way across Europe by extorting people for money.

The prosecution, though, contests this. They ask how he managed to pay for transportation, food, housing, how he secured a fake passport and a pistol through extortion alone without having a single run-in with police in five different countries. They contend it just doesn't seem plausible. Someone was surely helping him. But Aja refuses to elaborate. He said all he's going to say.

After that, Aja threatens to go on a hunger strike, which brings the proceedings to an abrupt halt after just a few days. Since he has confessed in court, though, the investigation is closed and Aja is sentenced to life imprisonment. For many, that's the end of the matter. But others continue to speculate, with suggestions that Aja was a Muslim extremist, working for the KGB or the CIA, or maybe he was just a madman.

Aja himself appears to resolve the mystery a year later when he abruptly announces that he did not act alone after all and was in fact hired by the Soviets. But by now, he's changed his story so many times that no one knows what to believe.

Despite his latest confession, there will be no new trial or official investigation into the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, and Aja will remain in prison. But in 1983, he will suddenly be thrust back into the spotlight by an unexpected visit from a man he tried to kill.

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The shooter, Mehmet Ali Aca, sits alone in a bare, white-walled cell. He wears a blue sweater, jeans, and white running shoes without laces. His face is unshaven. Since being handed a life sentence two years ago, Aca has been left to languish in solitude. He rarely receives visitors. But today, the door to his cell opens, and the guards lead in an unlikely guest, Pope John Paul II.

The Pope is fully recovered from the shooting and asks if Aja speaks Italian. The would-be assassin nods and kisses the Pope's outstretched hand. The two men then sit down together in folding chairs in the corner of the cell while a camera crew films the ensuing conversation. For months, the Pope has been delivering sermons on the theme of reconciliation. His visit to Aja is intended to be the ultimate public display of forgiveness.

John Paul II and Aja speak for 20 minutes. They lean their heads close together, clasping hands, with Aja even laughing several times. Neither of them is wearing a microphone, so the cameras only capture the image of the men speaking. Later that night, when the footage is broadcast around the world, the Pope states that the details of their conversation will remain a secret between himself and Aja. He does admit, though, that he forgave Aja and now trusts him like a brother.

The Pope then stays in touch with Aja and befriends his family. Seventeen years later, Aja is pardoned and released from prison at the Pope's request. And after John Paul II's death in 2014, Aja returns to Rome and places flowers on the tomb of the man he attempted to murder.

The truth behind why Aja shot the Pope or who he worked with may never be fully understood. But John Paul II's decision to forgive his would-be assassins sent a clear message to the world. By embracing tolerance and mercy, both politically and personally, the Pope was able to make a valuable lesson out of the most harrowing experience, the darkest moment of his life, when he was shot in St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981. ♪

Next on History Daily, May 14th, 1643. A four-year-old prince ascends to the throne of France, beginning a decades-long reign that will change the country forever. ♪

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily. Hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsey Graham. Audio editing by Mohamed Shazib. Sound design by Matthew Filler. Music by Thrun. This episode is written and researched by Owen Long. Edited by Joel Callen. Managing producer, Emily Burke. Executive producers are William Simpson for Airship and Pascal Hughes for Noiser. ♪

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