Mehmed II
Ottoman Sultan
Turkish miniature of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. painting by Nakkaş Sinan Bey.
Reign	1444–46
Reign 2	1451–81
Period	Rise of the Ottoman Empire
Full Name	Mehmet bin Murad Khan
Ottoman Turkish	محمد بن مراد خان
Born	March 30, 1432
Birthplace	Edirne
Died	May 3, 1481 (aged 49)
Place of death	Hünkârçayırı, near Gebze
Predecessor	Murad II
Successor	Murad II
Predecessor 2	Murad II
Successor 2	Bayezid II
Royal House	House of Osman
Dynasty	Ottoman Dynasty
Valide Sultan	Hüma Hatun

Mehmed II (March 30, 1432 – May 3, 1481) (Ottoman Turkish: محمد ثانى Meḥmed-i s̠ānī, Turkish: II. Mehmet), (also known as el-Fātiḥ (الفاتح, "the Conqueror" in Ottoman Turkish, in modern Turkish, Fatih Sultan Mehmet; also called Mahomet II^[1][2] in early modern Europe) was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (Rûm until the conquest) for a short time from 1444 to September 1446, and later from February 1451 to 1481. At the age of 21, he conquered Constantinople and brought an end to the Byzantine Empire, absorbing its administrative apparatus into the Ottoman state. Mehmed continued his conquests in Asia, with the Anatolian reunification, and in Europe, as far as Bosnia and Croatia. Mehmed II is regarded as a national hero in Turkey, and his name has been given to Istanbul's Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge.

Early reign[link]

Mehmed has left a scrap-book of pen and ink drawings which include these profile and three-quarter face portrait busts.

Mehmed II was born on March 30, 1432, in Edirne, then the capital city of the Ottoman state. His father was Sultan Murad II (1404–51) and his mother Valide Sultan Hüma Hatun, born in Devrekani county of Kastamonu province.

When Mehmed II was eleven years old he was sent to Amasya to govern and thus gain experience, as per the custom of Ottoman rulers before his time. After Murad II made peace with the Karaman Emirate in Anatolia in August 1444, he abdicated the throne to his 12-year-old son Mehmed II. Sultan Murad II had sent him a number of teachers for him to study under.^[3]

This Islamic education had a great impact in molding the mindset of Mehmed and reinforcing his Muslim beliefs. He began to praise and promote the application of Sharia law. He was influenced in his practice of Islamic epistemology by contemporaneous practitioners of science - particularly by his mentor, Molla Gürani - and he followed their approach. The influence of Ak Şemseddin in Mehmed's life became predominant from a young age, especially in the imperative of fulfilling his Islamic duty to overthrow the Byzantine empire by conquering Constantinople.^[4]

In his first reign, he defeated the crusade led by János Hunyadi after the Hungarian incursions into his country broke the conditions of the truce Peace of Szeged. Cardinal Julian Cesarini, the representative of the pope, had convinced the king of Hungary that breaking the truce with Muslims was not a betrayal.^[5] At this time Mehmed II asked his father Murad II to reclaim the throne, but Murad II refused. Angry at his father, who had long since retired to a contemplative life in southwestern Anatolia, Mehmed II wrote: "If you are the Sultan, come and lead your armies. If I am the Sultan I hereby order you to come and lead my armies." It was only after receiving this letter that Murad II led the Ottoman army and won the Battle of Varna in 1444.

It is said Murad II's return to the throne was forced by Çandarlı Halil Paşa, the grand vizier at the time, who was not fond of Mehmed II's rule, because Mehmed II's influential teacher had a rivalry with Çandarlı. Çandarlı was later executed by Mehmed II during the siege of Constantinople on the grounds that he had been bribed by or had somehow helped the defenders.

During his early reign, he married a Christian Albanian, Âminā Kul-Bahar Khātûn, the step-mother of his successor and son Bayezid II whose biological mother was Mükrime Hatun.^[6][7]

Conquest of Constantinople[link]

Accession of Mehmed II in Edirne 1451.

When Mehmed II ascended the throne in 1451 he devoted himself to strengthening the Ottoman Navy, and in the same year made preparations for the taking of Constantinople. In the narrow Bosporus Straits, the fortress Anadoluhisarı had been built by his great-grandfather Bayezid I on the Asiatic side; Mehmed erected an even stronger fortress called Rumelihisarı on the European side, and thus having complete control of the strait. Having completed his fortresses, Mehmet proceeded to levy a toll on ships passing within reach of their cannon. A Venetian vessel refusing signals to stop was sunk with a single shot and all the surviving sailors beheaded.^[8]

Sultan Mehmed II's entry into Constantinople, painting by Fausto Zonaro (1854–1929)

In 1453 Mehmed commenced the siege of Constantinople with an army between 80,000 to 200,000 troops and a navy of 320 vessels, though the bulk of them were transports and storeships. The city was now surrounded by sea and land; the fleet at the entrance of the Bosphorus was stretched from shore to shore in the form of a crescent, to intercept or repel any assistance from the sea for the besieged.^[8]

In early April, the Siege of Constantinople began. After several failed assaults, the city's walls held off the Turks with great difficulty, even with the use of the new Orban's bombard, a cannon similar to the Dardanelles Gun. The harbor of the Golden Horn was blocked by a boom chain and defended by twenty-eight warships.

On April 22, Mehmed transported his lighter warships overland, around the Genoese colony of Galata and into the Golden Horn's northern shore; eighty galleys were transported from the Bosphorus after paving a little over one-mile route with wood. Thus the Byzantines stretched their troops over a longer portion of the walls. A little over a month later, Constantinople fell on May 29 following a fifty-seven day siege.^[8] After this conquest, Mehmed moved the Ottoman capital from Adrianople to Constantinople. On his accession as conqueror of Constantinople, aged 21, Mehmed was reputed fluent in several languages, including Turkish, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, and Latin.^[9][10]

Map of Constantinople and its land walls and harbor.

Reference is made to the prospective conquest of Constantinople in a hadith (a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad): "Verily you shall conquer Constantinople. What a wonderful leader will he be, and what a wonderful army will that army be!"^[11] Ten years after the conquest of Constantinople Mehmed II visited the site of Troy and boasted that he had avenged the Trojans by having conquered the Greeks (Byzantines).^[12]

Mehmed II and Gennadios.

When Mehmed stepped into the ruins of the Boukoleon, known to the Ottomans and Persians as the Palace of the Caesars, probably built over a thousand years before by Theodosius II, he uttered the famous lines of Persian poetry:^{[citation needed]}

The spider weaves the curtains in the palace of the Caesars;

the owl calls the watches in the towers of Afrasiab.

After the Fall of Constantinople, Mehmed claimed the title of "Caesar" of Rome (Kayser-i Rûm). The claim was not recognized by the Patriarch of Constantinople, or Christian Europe. Mehmed's claim rested with the concept that Constantinople was the seat of the Roman Empire, after the transfer of its capital to Constantinople in 330 AD and the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Mehmed also had a blood lineage to the Byzantine Imperial family; his predecessor, Sultan Orhan I had married a Byzantine princess, and Mehmed may have claimed descent from John Tzelepes Komnenos.^[9] He was not the only ruler to claim such a title, as there was the Holy Roman Empire in Western Europe, whose emperor, Frederick III, traced his titular lineage from Charlemagne who obtained the title of Roman Emperor when he was crowned by Pope Leo III in 800 - although never recognized as such by the Byzantine Empire.

The Byzantine historian Doukas,^[13] stated that after the conquest of Constantinople, Mehmed II ordered the 14-year old son of the Grand Duke Lucas Notaras brought to him "for his pleasure". When the father refused to deliver his son to such a fate he had them both decapitated on the spot.^[14] Another contemporary Greek source, Leonard of Chios, professor of theology and Archbishop of Mytilene, tells the same story in his letter to Pope Nicholas. He describes Mehmed II requesting for the 14 year old handsome youth to be brought "for his pleasure".^[15] This story was originally recorded by Doukas, a Byzantine Greek living in Constantinople at the time of the fall of the city, and does not appear in accounts by other Greeks who witnessed the conquest.^[16] Some modern scholars believe that this tale is merely one of a long series of attempts to portray Muslims as morally inferior, and point to the story of Saint Pelagius as its probable inspiration.^[16]

Conquests in Asia[link]

Miniature of Mehmed II

The conquest of Constantinople allowed Mehmed II to turn his attention to Anatolia. Mehmed II tried to create a single political entity in Anatolia by capturing Turkish states called Beyliks and the Greek Empire of Trebizond in northeastern Anatolia and allied himself with the Crimean Khanate in the Crimea. Uniting the Anatolian Beyliks was first accomplished by Sultan Bayezid I, more than fifty years earlier than Mehmed II but after the destructive Battle of Ankara back in 1402, the newly formed Anatolian unification was gone. Mehmed II recovered the Ottoman power on other Turkish states. These conquests allowed him to push further into Europe.

Another important political entity which shaped the Eastern policy of Mehmed II was the White Sheep Turcomans. With the leadership of Uzun Hasan, this Turcoman kingdom gained power in the East but because of their strong relations with the Christian powers like Empire of Trebizond and the Republic of Venice and the alliance between Turcomans and Karamanid tribe, Mehmed saw them as a threat to his own power. He led a successful campaign against Uzun Hasan in 1473 which resulted with the decisive victory of the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Otlukbeli.

Conquests in Europe[link]

After the Fall of Constantinople, Mehmed would also go on to conquer the Despotate of Morea in the Peloponnese in 1460, and the Empire of Trebizond in northeastern Anatolia in 1461. The last two vestiges of Byzantine rule were thus absorbed by the Ottoman Empire. The conquest of Constantinople bestowed immense glory and prestige on the country.

Sword of Mehmed II

Siege of Belgrade (in Hungarian: Nándorfehérvár) 1456. Hünername 1584

Mehmed II advanced toward Eastern Europe as far as Belgrade, and attempted to conquer the city from John Hunyadi at the Siege of Belgrade in 1456. Hungarian commanders successfully defended the city and Ottomans retreated with heavy losses but at the end, Ottomans occupied nearly all of Serbia.

In 1463, after a dispute over the tribute paid annually by the Bosnian kingdom, Mehmed invaded Bosnia and conquered it very quickly, executing the last Bosnian king Stephen Tomašević and his uncle Radivoj.

In 1462 Mehmed II came into conflict with Prince Vlad III Dracula of Wallachia, who had spent part of his childhood alongside Mehmed.^[17] Vlad had ambushed, massacred or captured several Ottoman forces, then announced his impalement of over 23,000 captive Turks. Mehmed II abandoned his siege of Corinth to launch a punitive attack against Vlad in Wallachia^[18] but suffered many casualties in a surprise night attack led by Vlad, who was apparently bent on personally killing the Sultan.^[19] Confronted by Vlad's scorched earth policies and demoralizing brutality, Mehmed II withdrew, leaving his ally Radu cel Frumos, Vlad's brother, with a small force in order to win over local boyars who had been persecuted by Vlad III. Radu eventually managed to take control of Wallachia, which he administered as Bey, on behalf of Mehmet II. Vlad eventually escaped to Hungary, where he was imprisoned on a false accusation of treason against his overlord.

In 1475, the Ottomans suffered a great defeat at the hands of Stephen the Great of Moldavia at the Battle of Vaslui. In 1476, Mehmed won a pyrrhic victory against Stephen at the Battle of Valea Albă. He besieged the capital of Suceava, but could not take it, nor could he take the Castle of Târgu Neamţ. With a plague running in his camp and food and water being very scarce, Mehmed was forced to retreat.

The Albanian resistance in Albania between 1443 and 1468 led by George Kastrioti Skanderbeg (İskender Bey), an Albanian noble and a former member of the Ottoman ruling elite, prevented the Ottoman expansion into the Italian peninsula. Skanderbeg had united the Albanian Principalities in a fight against the Empire in the League of Lezhë in 1444. Mehmed II couldn't subjugate Albania and Skanderbeg while the latter was alive, even though twice (1466 and 1467) he led the Ottoman armies himself against Krujë. After death of Skanderbeg in 1468, Albanians couldn't find a leader to replace him and Mehmed II eventually conquered Krujë and Albania in 1478. The final act of his Albanian campaigns was the troublesome siege of Shkodra in 1478-9, a siege Mehmed II led personally.

Mehmed II invaded Italy in 1480. The intent of his invasion was to capture Rome and "reunite the Roman Empire", and, at first, looked like he might be able to do it with the easy capture of Otranto in 1480 but Otranto was retaken by Papal forces in 1481 after the death of Mehmed.

Administrative actions[link]

Sultan Mehmed II in 1479. Portrait by Italian painter Gentile Bellini

Italian commemorative medal of Sultan Mehmed as Byzantine Emperor, dated 1481

Mehmed II amalgamated the old Byzantine administration into the Ottoman state.^{[citation needed]} He first introduced the word Politics into Arabic "Siyasah" from a book he published and claimed to be the collection of Politics doctrines of the Byzantine Caesars before him. He gathered Italian artists, humanists and Greek scholars at his court, allowed the Byzantine Church to continue functioning, ordered the patriarch to translate Christian doctrine into Turkish, and called Gentile Bellini from Venice to paint his portrait. Mehmed invited Muslim scientists and artists to his court in Constantinople, started a University, built mosques (for example, the Fatih Mosque), waterways, and Istanbul's Topkapı Palace.

Mehmed II allowed his subjects a considerable degree of religious freedom, provided they were obedient to his rule. After his conquest of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1463 he issued a firman to the Bosnian Franciscans, granting them freedom to move freely within the Empire, offer worship in their churches and monasteries, and to practice their religion free from official and unofficial persecution, insult or disturbance.^[20][21] His standing army was recruited from the Devshirme, a group that took first-born Christian subjects at a young age that were destined for the sultans court. The less able, but physically strong were put into the army or the sultan's personal guard, the Janissaries.

Within Constantinople, Mehmed established a millet or an autonomous religious community, and appointed the former Patriarch^[who?] as religious governor of the city.^{[citation needed]} His authority extended only to the Orthodox Christians within the city, and this excluded the Genoese and Venetian settlements in the suburbs, and excluded Muslim and Jewish settlers entirely. This method allowed for an indirect rule of the Christian Byzantines and allowed the occupants to feel relatively autonomous even as Mehmed II began the Turkish remodeling of the city, turning it into the Turkish capital, which it remained until the 1920s.

Personal life[link]

Mehmed II had several wives: Validā Khātûn Âminā Kul-Bahar Khātûn, a Christian Albanian, who died in 1492,^[6][7] Gevher Khātûn; Gül-Şâh (Kulshah) Khātûn; Mûkrîmā (Sitt-î Mükrime) Khātûn;^[22] Çiçek Khātûn; Helenā Khātûn, who died in 1481, daughter of Demetrios Palaiologos and the Despot of Morea; briefly Anna Khātûn, the daughter of the Emperor of Trebizond; and Alexias Khātûn, a Byzantine princess. Another son of his was Cem Sultan, who died in 1495.

Death[link]

Mehmed died on May 3, 1481, at the age of forty-nine, and was buried in his Türbe in the cemetery within the Fatih Mosque Complex^[23] Mehmed's primary doctor, "Jacob Pasha" an Italian born convert to Islam was suspected of administering poison to Mehmed over a period of time and was executed.^{[citation needed]} Another source states that: "The likeliest possibility is that Mehmed was also poisoned by his Persian doctor. Despite numerous Venetian assassination attempts over the years, the finger of suspicion points most strongly at his son, Bayezit."^[24]

Legacy[link]

Reverse of the 1000 Turkish lira banknote (1986-1992)

Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge was named after him that straddles the Bosporus Straits in Istanbul in the twentieth century.

Statue of Mehmed the Conqueror, Edirne

After the fall of Constantinople, he founded many universities and colleges in the city, some of which are still active. Mehmed II is also recognized as the first Sultan to codify criminal and constitutional law long before Suleiman the Magnificent and he thus established the classical image of the autocratic Ottoman sultan.

His thirty-one year rule and several wars expanded the Ottoman Empire to include Constantinople, and the Turkish kingdoms and territories of Asia Minor, Bosnia, Kingdom of Serbia, and Albania. His many internal administrative and legal reforms put his country on the path to prosperity and paved the way for subsequent sultans to focus on expansion into new territories.^{[citation needed]}

Mehmed left behind an imposing reputation in both the Islamic and Christian worlds. The Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge was named after him that straddles the Bosporus Straits in Istanbul in the twentieth century. His name and picture appeared on the Turkish 1000 lira note between 1986 to 1992.^[25][26] He is the eponymous subject of Rossini's 1820 opera Maometto II.

See also[link]

Military history of the Ottoman Empire portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mehmed II

General

Sultan, Byzantine Empire, Ottoman Empire

Events

Expansion of the Ottoman Empire, Decline of the Byzantine Empire, Fall of Constantinople, Battle of Varna

Locations

Turkey, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge

Other

Cem (His younger son)

Further reading[link]

• Babinger, Franz, Mehmed the Conqueror and his Time. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978. ISBN 0-691-01078-1
• Dwight, Harrison Griswold, Constantinople, Old and New. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1915
• Hamlin, Cyrus, Among the Turks. New York: R. Carter & Bros, 1878
• Harris, Jonathan, The End of Byzantium. New Haven CT and London: Yale University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-300-11786-8
• Imber, Colin, The Ottoman Empire. London: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2002. ISBN 0-333-61387-2
• Philippides, Marios, Emperors, Patriarchs, and Sultans of Constantinople, 1373-1513: An Anonymous Greek Chronicle of the Sixteenth Century. Brookline MA: Hellenic College Press, 1990. ISBN 0-917653-16-5
• Nehme, Lina Murr, "1453, Mahomet II impose le Schisme Orthodoxe". Lebanon, Aleph & Taw, 2003. ISBN 2-86839-816-2.

References[link]

General information

• Lord Kinross (1977). The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise And Fall Of The Turkish Empire. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-688-08093-6. 
• Murr Nehme, Lina (2003). 1453: The Fall of Constantinople. Aleph Et Taw. ISBN 2-86839-816-2. 
• Silburn, P. A. B. (1912). The evolution of sea-power. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
• Dyer, T. H., & Hassall, A. (1901). A history of modern Europe From the fall of Constantinople. London: G. Bell and Sons.
• Fredet, Peter (1888). Modern History; From the Coming of Christ and Change of the Roman Republic into an Empire, to the Year of Our Lord 1888. Baltimore: J. Murphy & Co. Page 383+

Footnotes

External links[link]

• Biography page at OttomanOnline
• Contemporary portraits
• Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of Eastern Empire by Edward Gibbon

This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; suggestions may be available. (February 2009)

Pierre Vogel
Statistics
Real name	Pierre Vogel
Height	6 ft. 0 in. (183 cm)
Nationality	German[1]
Born	(1978-07-20) July 20, 1978 (age 33) Frechen, West Germany
Stance	?
Boxing record
Total fights	7[clarification needed]
Wins	6
Wins by KO	2
Losses	0
Draws	1

Pierre Vogel (b. July 20, 1978 in Frechen), Islamic name Abu Hamza^[2] is a German Islamic preacher and a former professional boxer.

Religion[link]

Pierre Vogel (on the right) and Bilal Philips speaking at a rally in Frankfurt, April 2011

Vogel converted to Islam in 2001 and shortly thereafter began courses on Islamic studies in Germany.^[3] For two years he studied Arabic and the Quran at the private school Om Al-Qura in Mecca.^{[citation needed]}

In 2006 he returned to Berlin and started teaching Islam at the Al-Nur-Moschee mosque Neukölln, in universities and even among Christians.^{[citation needed]}

Boxing career[link]

After 66 amateur fights^{[citation needed]} he turned professional at the age of 22, fighting briefly (for two years) as a cruiserweightfor the Sauerland club and was undefeated in seven bouts.^[4]

Private life[link]

Vogel is married to a Muslim Moroccan woman and is father of three children.^[5]

Media perception[link]

He has been described in one German report as a "radical Muslim".^[6]

When he appeared at a Muslim meeting in Ferihegy^[when?], he said that polygamy is legitimate due to the fact that there are more women than men in Germany.^[7]

References[link]

External links[link]

• PierreVogel.de (Pierre Vogels own & new website)
• EinladungZumParadies.de (Pierre Vogel's former website)
• diewahrereligion.de: Pierre Vogel (Pierre Vogel's former website)
• Professional boxing record for Pierre Vogel from BoxRec
• Eine Reportage über dem Ex-Profi Boxer Pierre Vogel, der zum Islam konvertiert ist, aus dem 2. kroatischen Staatsfernsehen (mit kroatischen Untertiteln) HRT 2

Mehmet Ali Ağca (Turkish pronunciation: [ˈaːdʒa]; born January 9, 1958) is a Turkish^[1][2] assassin who murdered left-wing journalist Abdi İpekçi on February 1, 1979 and later shot and wounded Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981, after escaping from a Turkish prison. After serving 19 years of imprisonment in Italy, he was deported to Turkey, where he served a ten-year sentence. He was released on January 18, 2010.^[3] Ağca has described himself as a mercenary with no political orientation, although he is known to have been a member of the Turkish ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves organization.

Early life[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (December 2010)

Ağca was born in the Hekimhan district, Malatya Province in Turkey. As a youth, he became a petty criminal and a member of street gangs in his home town. He became a smuggler between Turkey and Bulgaria.

He claims to have received two months of training in weaponry and terrorist tactics in Syria as a member of the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine paid for by the Communist Bulgarian government, although this has been questioned.

Grey Wolves involvement[link]

After training he went to work for the far-right Turkish Grey Wolves, who were at the time destabilizing Turkey, which led to a military coup in 1980. It has been claimed ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves were being used by the CIA. For instance, according to Kendal Nezan of the Kurdish Institute of Paris, they were infiltrated and manipulated by Gladio "stay-behind" networks, a NATO clandestine structure.^[4]

On February 1, 1979 in Istanbul, under orders from the Grey Wolves, he murdered Abdi İpekçi, editor of a major Turkish newspaper Milliyet. He was caught due to an informant and was sentenced to life in prison. After serving six months, he escaped with the help of Abdullah Çatlı, second-in-command of the Grey Wolves and a prominent Gladio operative, and fled to Bulgaria, which was a base of operation for the Turkish mafia. According to investigative journalist Lucy Komisar, Mehmet Ali Ağca had worked with Abdullah Çatlı in this 1979 assassination, who "then reportedly helped organize Ağca's escape from an Istanbul military prison, and some have suggested Çatlı was even involved in the Pope's assassination attempt". According to Reuters, Ağca had "escaped with suspected help from sympathizers in the security services".^[5] Lucy Komisar added that at the scene of the Mercedes-Benz crash where Çatlı died, he was found with a passport under the name of "Mehmet Özbay" — an alias also used by Mehmet Ali Ağca.^[6]

Assassination attempt on the Pope[link]

Beginning in August 1980 Ağca began criss-crossing the Mediterranean region, changing passports and identities, perhaps to hide his trigger point of origin in Sofia, Bulgaria. He entered Rome on May 10, 1981, coming by train from Milan.^{[citation needed]}

According to Ağca's later testimony, he met with three accomplices in Rome, one a fellow Turk and the other two Bulgarians. The operation was commanded by Zilo Vassilev, the Bulgarian military attaché in Italy. He said that he was assigned this mission by Turkish mafioso Bekir Celenk in Bulgaria. Le Monde diplomatique, however, has alleged that the assassination attempt was organized by Abdullah Çatlı "in exchange for the sum of 3 million marks", paid by Bekir Celenk to the Grey Wolves.^[7]

According to Ağca, the plan was for him and the back-up gunman Oral Çelik to open fire in St. Peter's Square and escape to the Bulgarian embassy under the cover of the panic generated by a small explosion. On May 13 they sat in the square, writing postcards and waiting for the Pope to arrive. When the Pope passed them, Ağca fired several shots and wounded him, but was grabbed by spectators and Vatican security chief Camillo Cibin and prevented from finishing the assassination or escaping. Four bullets hit John Paul II, two of them lodging in his lower intestine, the others hitting his left hand and right arm. Two bystanders were also hit. Çelik panicked and fled without setting off his bomb or opening fire. The Pope survived the assassination attempt.

Prison time, release, and rearrest[link]

Ağca was sentenced, in July 1981, to life imprisonment in Italy for the assassination attempt. Following his shooting, Pope John Paul II asked people to "pray for my brother (Ağca), whom I have sincerely forgiven."^[8] Although Ağca had been quoted as saying that "to me [the Pope] was the incarnation of all that is capitalism", and had attempted to murder him, Ağca developed a friendship with the pontiff.^{[citation needed]} In 1983, he and Ağca met and spoke privately at the prison where Ağca was being held. The Pope was also in touch with Ağca's family over the years, meeting his mother in 1987 and his brother a decade later.^[9] After serving almost 20 years of a life sentence in prison in Italy, Ağca was pardoned by the then Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi in June 2000 and deported to Turkey.^[10]

Following his extradition to Turkey, he was imprisoned for the 1979 murder of Abdi İpekçi and for two bank raids carried out in the 1970s. Journalist Abdi İpekçi was killed on February 1, 1979. Ağca was arrested on June 25 and incarcerated in the Maltepe Military Prison. He fled to Bulgaria on 25 November and was sentenced to death in his absence. Ağca was extradited to Turkey in 2000 by benefiting from the Conditional Amnesty Law. This possibility granted to the ex-convict caused strong reactions. Both cases about Ağca were merged and tried before the Kadıköy 1st High Criminal Court. The single trial concerned the usurpation of Cengiz Aydos' taxi in 1979, robbing the Yıldırm jewelry store in Kızıltoprak on March 22, 1979 and stealing money from the Fruko soda storage on April 4, 1979.

On June 9, 1997, Air Malta Flight 830 was hijacked by two men. After landing in Cologne, the hijackers demanded the release of Ağca, who at the time was serving a life sentence in Italy for trying to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981. Ağca was not released and the hijackers surrendered.

On 18 January 2000, the judges decreed for a dismissal of proceedings due to the statute of limitation regarding the case filed for the jewelry store robbery and for "opposition to the Firearms Act" (law no. 6136). For usurpation and money theft Ağca was handed a 36 year prison sentence. Ağca's lawyers applied for the release of their client deriving benefit from law no. 4516 related to Parole and Postponement of Penalties in December 2000. Their request was rejected by the Kartal 1st High Criminal Court. The lawyers filed an appeal against this decision which was declined again. Ağca was sentenced to 10 years in prison for murder.^[11]

In early February 2005, during the Pope's illness, Ağca sent a letter to the Pope wishing him well and also warning him that the world would end soon. When the Pope died on April 2, 2005, Ağca's brother Adnan gave an interview in which he said that Ağca and his entire family were grieving, and that the Pope had been a great friend to them. On April 5, 2005 CNN stated that Ağca would want to visit the Pope's funeral on April 8, 2005. However, Turkish authorities rejected his request to leave prison to attend.^{[citation needed]}

Ağca was released on parole on January 12, 2006.^[12] Mustafa Demirbağ, his lawyer, explained his release as a combination of amnesty and penal reform: an amnesty in 2000 deducted 10 years from his time, the court then deducted his 20 years in the Italian prison based on a new article in the penal code, and he was then eligible to be paroled based on good behaviour. However, a report from the French AFP news agency stated that "The Turkish judicial authorities still haven't explained exactly which legal resources he had access to", and former minister of Justice Hikmet Sami Türk, in government at the time of Ağca's extradition, claimed that, from a legal viewpoint, his liberation was a "serious mistake" at best, and that he should have not been freed before 2012.^[13][14] However, on January 20, 2006, the Turkish Supreme Court ruled that his time served in Italy could not be deducted from his Turkish sentence and he was returned to jail.^[5]

It was during his time in prison that he converted to Christianity in 2007. He claimed to be the Messiah at his trial and has made many bizarre statements over the years, although it has never been clear whether he is mentally unstable or merely acting.^[15]

On Pope Benedict XVI[link]

After Pope Benedict XVI was criticized by the Muslim world following the September 12, 2006 Regensburg lecture, Ali Ağca wrote a letter to the Pope from jail warning him to cancel his planned trip to Turkey in November 2006. In the letter, which was published in leading Italian Rome-based daily la Repubblica,^[16] he stated:

Pope Ratzinger listen to someone who knows these things very well.

Your life is in danger. You absolutely must not come to Turkey. Pope Benedict you must know that between 1980 and 2000 I was in contact with various Western intelligence services and with the Vatican.

In those twenty years, I learnt many things and I came into possession of many classified secrets.

For your own welfare, you must make a grand gesture of honour and resign.

Then you must return to your native land (Germany) and in your place an Italian cardinal can be elected Pope, possibly Tettamanzi or Bertone.

Then the Vatican should become a center of peace and fraternity. The world has a need of this, it does not need hatred and vendetta.^[16]