Holy Bloody Hell: Soviets Behind Pope Assassin

I think I'm using the word right. You're an assassin whether you succeed in killing your target or not.

Semantics aside... WOW:

An Italian parliamentary commission concluded "beyond any reasonable doubt" that the Soviet Union was behind the 1981 attempt to kill Pope John Paul II _ a theory long alleged but never proved, according to a draft report made available Thursday.

The commission held that the pope was a danger to the Soviet bloc because of his support for the Solidarity labor movement in his native Poland. Solidarity was the first free trade union in communist eastern Europe.

"This commission believes, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the leaders of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate the pope Karol Wojtyla," said a draft of the commission's report obtained by The Associated Press. Wojtyla was John Paul's Polish name.

The draft has no bearing on any judicial investigations, which have long been closed. If the commission approves the report in its final form, that would mark the first time an official body had blamed the Soviet Union for shooting John Paul.

The Italian report said Soviet military intelligence _ and not the KGB _ was responsible. In Russia, Foreign Intelligence Service spokesman Boris Labusov called the accusation "absurd."

How naive and childish Reagan was to call the Soviet Union an "Empire of Evil."

posted by Ace at 03:37 PM

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