Terrorism: On the Bulgarian Trail

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What had begun as mere whispers took on significance several months ago, when Agca, 24, an escaped Turkish prisoner who is now serving a life sentence in Rome for the attempted murder of the Pope, changed his previous story that he had acted alone. Instead, he said, he had been part of a conspiracy that involved at least three Bulgarian officials in Rome: Sergei Ivanov Antonov, 34, head of the Rome office of Bulgaria's Balkan Airlines; Zhelio Vassilev, 40, a former secretary to the Bulgarian military attache in Rome; and Todor Aivazov, 39, an accountant at the Bulgarian embassy in Rome. In his speech to Parliament, Lagorio confirmed the details of Agca's confession. He also confirmed that the reputed Turkish arms and drugs smuggler Bekir Çelenk was a key coconspirator. Çelenk, according to newspaper accounts, offered Agca $1.25 million to kill the Pope. The most dramatic corroboration seems to have come when investigators handed Agca a stack of unidentified photos. According to Lagorio, Agca unhesitatingly picked out the pictures of the three Bulgarians. Said Agca: "These are my accomplices." He also gave the police telephone numbers that matched those of the Bulgarian embassy and Aivazov's apartment. On the strength of Agca's accusation, the Italian police arrested Antonov, issued a warrant for Vassilev and officially implicated Aivazov. Antonov is being held in Rome, but the other Bulgarians are now safely in Sofia.

As interest in the "Bulgarian connection" mounted, a second link hit the headlines. Newspapers had previously reported that Luigi Scricciolo, a former union official who was arrested in February and charged with assisting the terrorist Red Brigades, had been in contact with Bulgarian agents. Justice Minister Clelio Darida gave substance to that rumor last week when he accused Scricciolo of spying for Bulgaria "to procure with espionage aims political and military information on NATO." He further charged that Scricciolo had "aimed to establish a collaboration between Bulgaria and the Red Brigades," no tably in the kidnaping of U.S. General James Dozier, who was rescued last January after being held captive for 42 days. Darida based his accusation in part on clandestine radio transmissions from Bulgaria to Italy that had been intercepted by Italian authorities. He also raised the total number of Bulgarians accused of subversion in Italy to five, naming two additional former embassy employees whom Scricciolo identified in a confession as his contacts. Their present whereabouts are unknown.