Mehmet Ali Agca

The Turk who shot Pope John Paul II failed to report to a police station Friday, a day after his release from prison, and authorities said the military could seek his arrest for draft dodging. Mehmet Ali Agca was required to report daily to a police station to allow authorities to keep tabs on him at least until officials decide whether he should serve in the military, which is mandatory in most cases. Istanbul Gov.

A military hospital pronounced the Turk who shot Pope John Paul II unfit for military service, ending days of speculation over whether 48-year-old Mehmet Ali Agca would be forced to serve. Agca hid behind a beret as he entered the grounds of the military hospital in a car, his first public appearance since he vanished after his release from a high-security prison last week.

Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, was detained by authorities Friday after an appeals court overturned a decision to free Turkey's most notorious criminal. An hour and half after the ruling, police handcuffed Agca at an apartment block in Istanbul's lower middle class Kartal neighborhood, close to the jail from which he had been released Jan. 12. Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler said Agca did not put up a fight. He did, however, repeat assertions that he was the messiah.

Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who shot and seriously wounded Pope John Paul II in 1981, has requested a leave from prison to attend the pontiff's funeral, saying he is mourning the loss of his "spiritual brother." "I must be there," Agca said Monday through his attorney. "I must attend the funeral." The lawyer, Mustafa Demirag, met with Agca in Istanbul's Kartal prison and said he would seek permission from a prosecutor for his client to travel to Rome.

Authorities turned down, as expected, a request by the man who wounded Pope John Paul II in 1981 to leave prison and attend the pontiff's funeral, his lawyer said. The pope met with Mehmet Ali Agca in an Italian prison in 1983 and forgave him for the shooting. Agca was extradited to Turkey in 2000 after almost 20 years behind bars in Italy. Agca is serving a 17-year prison sentence in Istanbul for earlier crimes in Turkey.

Mehmet Ali Agca, who served nearly 20 years in an Italian prison for shooting Pope John Paul II in 1981, had his sentence reduced in the 1979 murder of a Turkish journalist and could be released at the end of next year, his lawyer said. Agca, 46, had been sentenced to 10 years for killing Abdi Ipekci and to seven years and four months for two robberies in Turkey.

Mehmet Ali Agca, the gunman who wounded Pope John Paul II in a 1981 assassination attempt with still-mysterious motives, was pardoned Tuesday by Italy's president and sent home to Turkey to finish a prison term there for an unrelated murder. The surprise move did nothing to shed light on the lingering question of whether Agca acted alone.

The man who tried to kill Pope John Paul II--a Turkish terrorist who has already been forgiven three times by the pontiff--may be considered soon for a presidential pardon, the Justice Ministry said Friday. And ministry spokesman Emilio Albertario said that President Francesco Cossiga would be likely to grant freedom to Mehmet Ali Agca, now serving a life prison sentence for shooting and wounding the Pope in St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981.