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Turkish president vetoes amnesty for Agca
Turkey's president on Saturday vetoed an amnesty bill that could have freed the Turkish gunman who shot Pope John Paul II from a Turkish prison 10 years early. The gunman, Mehmet Ali Agca, spent nearly 20 years in an Italian prison after shooting the pope in 1981. He is now serving 17 years for the 1979 murder of Turkish newspaper editor Abdi Ipekci and the robbery of an Istanbul factory that year.Parliament approved the amnesty bill Thursday, but President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said Saturday that it had serious faults. The sentence reductions would occur regardless of a prisoner's behavior, he said. Also, the bill passed with a majority but not 60 percent of parliament - which Sezer argued was constitutionally necessary for a special amnesty. Agca's kind of the paragon of terrorism. Once you've shot the Pope, what's a few women and children and babies? Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2002-04-28 |
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