Would-be papal assassin Mehmet Ali Agca is free

The Turkish man who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981 was freed yesterday after nearly three decades in jail, rekindling questions about whether he acted alone when he shot the Pope in St Peter's Square, or whether he was hired by the Russian KGB or the Bulgarians.

The Polish pontiff was famously opposed to communism and there have always been suspicions that the attempted assassination - a full eight years before the Berlin Wall came down - was ordered by Soviet intelligence.

Mehmet Ali Agca, now 52, issued a statement before leaving Ankara's Sincan prison yesterday in which he promised to answer questions about the assassination attempt in the next few weeks.

But there are two obstacles in the way of getting straight answers from the Turk.

First, he has displayed signs of being mentally unbalanced ever since the attack on May 13, 1981 when he stepped out of the crowd and shot the Pope twice in the stomach.

As the pontiff slumped to his seat, the blood spreading across his cream cassock, Agca was quickly caught and hauled in for interrogation. At first he claimed he was working for Bulgarian intelligence. But he soon changed his tune and began issuing barking declarations, claiming to be Jesus Christ and announcing the end of the world.

He was still doing the same routine yesterday as he left prison. "All the world will be destroyed in this century," he shouted to waiting reporters. "Every human being will die in this century.

"I am not God and I am not the son of God. I am the Christ Eternal."

The second problem is that Agca apparently expects to be paid for his story - and paid well. According to the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News, his family hopes to earn at least $50m "in copyrights from TV series, interviews, documentaries and books".

Among his plans are a TV interview - for which he wants to be paid $2m - and a request that the Da Vinci Code author, Dan Brown, writes his story in a book to be titled The Vatican Code.

Will publishers and TV documentary makers line up to buy Agca story? It seems likely the secret about the attempt on the popular John Paul II's life will remain buried for a while. ·