Prosecutors Said to Drop Probe of Ex-AIG Executive (Update1)

Posted by Ahmed on 3:41 PM
May 22, 2010, 4:55 PM EDT
(Adds lawyers for Forster in the 10th paragraph.)
By Karen Gullo
May 22 (Bloomberg) -- Federal prosecutors won’t bring charges against former American International Group Inc. executive Joseph Cassano related to the insurer’s collapse, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
The Justice Department found after a two-year investigation that there was insufficient evidence to charge Cassano, who was the former chief executive officer of AIG’s Financial Products division, the person said.
The Justice Department and civil investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission were examining comments made in 2007 by Cassano and other AIG executives. They were probing whether executives misrepresented the value of AIG’s portfolio of “super senior” credit-default swaps, which insured bond losses tied to the U.S. housing market.
“Although a 2-year, intense investigation is tough for anyone, the results are wholly appropriate in light of our client’s factual innocence,” F. Joseph Warin, an attorney for Cassano, said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.
“The large group of federal agents and prosecutors was diligent and professional throughout the investigation, and our client is grateful that they did their jobs by following the facts to the end,” Warin said. “This result was the product of two things: an innocent client and fair prosecutors and agents. The system worked.”
Cassano’s Cooperation
Warin said in November 2008 that Cassano was cooperating with investigators and acted lawfully. Cassano, he said, acted appropriately during the valuation of AIG’s credit-default swaps and gave “full and complete information to investors, his supervisors and auditors.”
Cassano’s London-based unit managed $2 trillion in derivative trades tied to bonds, currencies, commodities and stocks. He told investors in December 2007 that “it is very difficult to see how there can be any losses in these portfolios.”
By Feb. 28, 2008, AIG posted what was then its biggest quarterly loss, writing down $11.1 billion on the swaps. AIG announced Cassano’s resignation as president and chief executive officer of AIG Financial Products a day later.
No More Investigating
The Justice Department told attorneys for Andrew Forster, an AIG executive vice president and deputy to Cassano, that it was ending an investigation of their client, the lawyers said in a statement.
“We were very pleased but not surprised to hear from the DOJ today that they were dropping the criminal investigation of our client,” said David Brodsky and Richard Owens, partners at Latham & Watkins, in an e-mail today. “In the end, the facts were stronger than the emotions surrounding AIG’s problems.”
AIG spokesman Mark Herr said the company welcomes the Justice Department’s decision.
“We continue to cooperate with other authorities on their assessment of these events as we focus on strengthening our businesses and repaying American taxpayers,” he said in an e- mail today.
Alisa Finelli, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said in an e-mail today that the agency had no comment.
The federal government’s bailout of AIG is expected to cost the Treasury Department $45.2 billion, based on March 31 data, the department said yesterday in a statement. The New York-based insurer’s $182.3 billion rescue includes as much as $69.8 billion from Treasury, a $60 billion Federal Reserve credit line and as much as $52.5 billion to buy mortgage-linked assets owned or backed by AIG.
--With assistance from David Voreacos in Newark, New Jersey, and Hugh Son in New York. Editors: Michael Hytha, Sylvia Wier
To contact the reporter on this story: Karen Gullo in San Francisco at kgullo@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Rovella at at drovella@bloomberg.net.
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Will Prophet Mohammad cartoon in South Africa threaten World Cup?

Posted by Ahmed on 3:38 PM
By Scott Baldauf, Staff writer / May 22, 2010
Johannesburg A cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad published in a South African weekly newspaper has created a furor among the local Muslim community, raising once again the debate between the competing principles of free expression and respect for religious faith in a pluralistic society.
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Coming just 20 days before South Africa hosts the World Cup soccer matches, the Mohammad cartoon – which is much gentler than those published by Dutch and Danish newspapers or even by the American TV program “South Park” – has raised the spectre of a violent reaction in South Africa from extremist groups who see themselves as defenders of the Islamic faith. One alleged Al Qaeda leader, arrested in Iraq, claimed to have been planning attacks against Danish and Dutch fans because of cartoons of Mohammad printed in their countries.
The cartoon, drawn by South Africa’s premier cartoonist Jonathan Shapira – also known as Zapiro – depicts the prophet lying on a psychiatrist’s couch in heaven, complaining, “Other prophets have followers with a sense of humor!”
“He was trying to make a fairly gentle interpretation of the global debate on the representation of the Prophet and on free speech,” says Nic Dawes, editor of the Mail & Guardian weekly newspaper, which printed the cartoon.
“I have to consider the paper’s equality of treatment for different faiths,” he said. “Zapiro has profoundly offended many other people, including Catholic readers for his depiction of the pope. He’s a robust critic of Israel’s occupation of Palestine, which many Jewish readers object to. Even the president of South Africa is suing him because of his depiction, which he doesn’t like.”
South Africa's Muslim Judicial Council issued a statement condemning the cartoon on its website this weekend.
"The Muslim leadership appeals to all Muslims to express their condemnation and disapproval of this latest insult on the Muslim community in a responsible and dignified manner," the council said.
Even before the Zapiro cartoon, security at the World Cup games was already a serious concern for many foreign countries, whose citizens are likely to attend the month-long soccer tournament starting June 11. More than 325,000 foreigners are expected to attend the games, and the largest single national group of these are Americans, who have bought some 40,000 tickets alone.
Terrorist groups have made numerous threats against Danish and Dutch cartoonists who have depicted the Prophet Mohammad, and some South Africans view the latest cartoon as courting violence in the name of publicity.
Mr. Shapiro himself tells the Independent newspaper that he didn’t draw to offend Muslims but to challenge them.
“I believe that all religions should be subjected to satire and that some religious groups should not be able to think they are above society,” he said.
The US government, which will have the largest contingent of fans attending the World Cup games, aside from South Africans themselves, has not issued a statement on the Zapiro cartoon. But it does attempt to walk a cautious middle line between free speech and religious respect.
Assistant Secretary of State Phillip Crowley told reporters in Washington last week, “We are deeply concerned about any deliberate attempt to offend Muslims or members of any other religious groups. We do not condone offensive speech that can incite violence or hatred.”
Speaking about Pakistan’s ban of Facebook because of a cartoonist campaign called “Everybody Draw Mohammad Day,” Mr. Crowley added, “The best antidote to intolerance is not banning or punishing offensive speech, but rather a combination of robust legal protections against discrimination and hate crimes, and proactive government outreach to minority religious groups and the vigorous defense of both freedom of religion and expression.”
While Mr. Dawes admits that his staff has received phone calls issuing death threats, he adds that the majority of discussions he has had with Muslim clerics about this cartoon have been “extremely thoughtful” and calm.
Steven Friedman, a political scientist and director of the Democracy and Governance Program at the University of Johannesburg, says that the sensitivity of Muslims on this issue is similar to that of his own Jewish community on the issues surrounding Israel and Palestine.
As for security, Mr. Friedman says the “only way to deal with people who threaten violence is to have a decent security system in place, not to stop cartoonists from saying something.”
“This was so gentle,” he says. “It was not trying to goad Muslims. It was trying to challenge them. If a cartoonist can’t do that, then what can a cartoonist do?”
Related:
Pakistan bans Facebook, Youtube over 'Draw Mohammad Day'
Cartoonist Lars Vilks attacked for showing Prophet Mohammed in gay film

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Bangkok limps back to normal, but divisions remain

Posted by Ahmed on 3:35 PM
A totally deserted camp of anti-government protesters is seen following an Army assault on a protest site in downtown Bangkok on Friday. Photo: AP
A totally deserted camp of anti-government protesters is seen following an Army assault on a protest site in downtown Bangkok on Friday. Photo: AP
A nighttime curfew remained in force in Bangkok on Saturday and mass transit services were suspended in the wake of a week of political violence that left at least 53 people dead and 415 injured.
A massive clean—up was under way in the central Ratchaprasong area, Bangkok’s ritziest shopping and hotel district, where thousands of anti—government protestors had camped from April 3 to May 19.
The squatters, mainly poor rural and urban followers of fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, were chased out of the area on Wednesday by Thai troops and armoured vehicles.
The MRT subway system announced it would resume operations on Sunday, and the above—ground skytrain system said it would resume service on Sunday or Monday after the rail lines are checked by technicians.
Education Minister Chinnaworn Boonyakiat said most public schools would reopen for the new semester on Monday after a week’s delay.
However, 28 schools within seven Bangkok districts declared disaster zones — Bang Rak, Din Daeng, Pathum Wan, Klong Toey, Sathorn, Wattana and Ratchathewi — would remain closed until May 31.
Thirty—six buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged in arson attacks in the wake of the army assault on Ratchaprasong.
Central World, one of the largest shopping malls in Asia, was one of the worst hit. The city authorities said on Saturday that firetrucks would remain at the smouldering ruin for another week.
The body of a young man was found on the fourth floor of Central World on Friday, but Thai news reports that nine more bodies were found in the building’s basement could not be confirmed.
Government spokesman Panithan Wattanayankorn and officials of the Erawan Emergency Centre said they were looking into the report.
In a speech Friday, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva pledged to work for national reconciliation.
“We have restored order in the capital of Bangkok and in the provinces of Thailand,” Mr. Abhisit said. “There are huge challenges ahead of us, particularly the challenge of overcoming the divisions that have occurred in the country.” But reconciliation appeared to be an elusive goal amid widespread anger among Mr. Abhisit’s political enemies at the military crackdown.
It was also unclear whether Mr. Abhisit would go ahead with his “road map” to national reconciliation, which included an early dissolution of parliament and an election in November.
Rejection of this plan by hard—line protestors led to the decision to clear the central shopping district by force.
The United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, supported politically and financially from abroad by telecommunications tycoon Thaksin, started demonstrating in Bangkok on March 12.
Its aim was to bring about early elections, which they were confident of winning because of Mr. Thaksin’s strong support in the populous northern and north—eastern provinces.
Mr. Thaksin was ousted in a military coup in 2006 and fled the country after he was convicted of abuse of power. He was sentenced to two years in jail by a Thai court, and more than a billion dollars of his assets were seized.
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Investigations underway into Indian plane crash

Posted by Ahmed on 3:32 PM
By South Asia correspondent Sally Sara and wires
Updated 12 minutes ago
PreviousNextSlideshow: Photo 1 of 4
Police stand guard at India plane crash site
Authorities say the pilot was very experienced and suggested a short runway overrun area could have contributed to the disaster. (Reuters: Rupak De Chowdhuri )
Indian civil aviation officials have started investigating yesterday's crash of an Air India Express jet that killed 158 people.
The flight from Dubai overshot the runway coming in to land near the southern city of Mangalore and plunged into a steep forested gorge, where it burst into flames.
Only eight passengers survived when the aircraft broke up and caught fire. Survivors have told of their escape amid scenes of horror and death, crawling or being carried from the burning remains.
Many of the victims were Indian workers returning from jobs in the Persian Gulf. Some had not seen their families for more than a year.
India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation is trying to determine the cause of the crash, which is the country's worst civil aviation disaster in 14 years.
India's aviation minister, Praful Patel, says he feels morally responsible and deeply saddened by the accident.
After returning to New Delhi from the crash site Mr Patel briefed the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, on the disaster.
Later he told reporters that as head of civil aviation he feels very saddened and a great sense of anguish, but declined to confirm reports that he had offered to resign.
"I have conveyed my deep sense of anguish to the prime minister," he said.
"I also feel personally morally responsible that such a sad and tragic incident has taken place."
Mr Patel says the pilot of the plane was "very experienced" and suggested a short runway overrun area could have contributed to the disaster.
He says chief pilot Z. Glusica - officially identified as a Serbian national - had logged more than 10,000 hours of flying time and was familiar with the table-top runway, having landed there nearly 20 times in the past.
While saying landing conditions had been fair with good visibility, he noted that the sanded safety area surrounding the runway in the event of an overshoot was shorter than at some airports.
"Mangalore does not have much of a spillover area [and] in this case apparently it had not been able to stop the plane," Mr Patel said.
"We can certainly say from preliminary findings that everything otherwise, except the touchdown and the stopping of the plane ... appeared to be normal."
But the minister stressed it was "too early" to determine the precise cause of the crash, saying an inquiry had been ordered into the incident and that efforts were being made to retrieve the plane's digital flight data recorder, or "black box".
A team from the aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, is being sent from the US to India to provide technical help to investigators probing the crash.
The chairman of the Indian Airports Authority, V.P. Agarwal, says the plane's flight crew had not reported any problem.
- ABC/BBC/Reuters/AFP
Tags: disasters-and-accidents, accidents, air-and-space-accidents, india, united-arab-emirates
First posted 2 hours 15 minutes ago
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158 killed as plane crashes at Mangalore

Posted by Ahmed on 3:30 PM
158 killed as plane crashes at Mangalore
Govind Belgaumkar & Sudipto Mondal
Air India Express flight from Dubai overshoots runway, plunges into valley; 8 survive miraculously
— Photo: AP

TRAGEDY IN MANGALORE: Civilians look on as firefighters and rescue personnel try to put out the fire
MANGALORE: An Air India Express plane from Dubai overshot the table-top runway at the Mangalore airport on Saturday morning and plunged over a cliff into a wooded valley, killing 158 persons.
There were 160 passengers and six crew members on board Flight IX-812. The passengers included 137 adults, 19 children and 4 infants. Eight passengers survived miraculously.
The plane burst into flames after the crash, which occurred at 6.10 a.m. The captain of the flight, Z. Glusica, a British national of Serbian origin, and his co-pilot H.S. Ahluwalia are among the dead. Nine passengers did not board the flight, according to the manifest.
Mohammad Usman, a survivor, who was in seat no. 19 said: “I heard a horrible sound when the plane landed. Within a few seconds it caught fire and the flames spread inside. I crawled out from a crack near the left wing. I removed my seat belt in time and saved myself.”
— Photo: PTI

Krishnan Koolikunnu, a survivor, has lunch at a hospital in Mangalore on Saturday.
Another survivor, Joel Prathap D'Souza, astounded airport officials when he turned up at the arrival wing for immigration formalities.
Fire tenders had a tough time reaching the inaccessible crash site. Residents of the nearby Kenjar village rose to the occasion, throwing themselves selflessly into the rescue work, carrying bodies out of the burning wreckage. Police said all 158 bodies were recovered by evening.
Reasons unclear
The reasons for the crash are as yet unclear. Minister of State for Civil Aviation Praful Patel said an enquiry by the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had been ordered.

The pilot did not report any problem or deficiency either during the course of the flight or on its final stretch. The weather was relatively normal with a visibility of six kilometres, calm winds and no rain. The runway was dry, Mr. Patel said.
Captain Glusica had 10,200 hours of flying experience, out of which 7,630 were as pilot-in-command. He was familiar with the airport and had made 19 landings there, last touching down at the Mangalore airport in November 2009. Co-pilot Ahluwalia, based in Mangalore, had 3,650 hours of flying experience, and he too was familiar with the airfield.
Heart-rending scenes
The scene at the Government Wenlock Hospital, where most of the bodies of the victims were brought, was one of untold grief. Relatives and friends had to perform the terrible task of identifying their loved ones from among bodies charred beyond recognition.
Said Vasanthi Shetty of B.C. Road, Mangalore: “I identified my sister Rama Satish by her gold ornaments.”
Flight operations remained suspended till 2 p.m. Hundreds of passengers going to Abu Dhabi, Kolkata and New Delhi were stranded for several hours.
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Heavy snow halts planes, trains and cars in Europe

Posted by Ahmed on 1:39 PM

Heavy snow halts planes, trains and cars in Europe

A police officer directs a car to exit the motorway A20 to a parking area nearAP – A police officer directs a car to exit the motorway A20 to a parking area near Grimmen, northern Germany, …
By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER, Associated Press Writer – Sun Jan 10, 12:29 pm ET
BERLIN – Europeans were struggling to restore roads and railways Sunday after heavy snow caused hundreds of traffic accidents, halted flights from Germany and France, downed power lines in Poland and trapped more than 160 people overnight on a frozen German highway.
The 148 adults and 19 children stuck on Germany's coastal A20 highway survived by running their car engines until rescuers usingsnow plows and excavators pushed through 6.5-foot (2-meter) drifts to free them Sunday morning, police in the town of Altentreptow said.
"At least the firefighters were able to bring them hot beverages and food while they were waiting," said Jens Apelt, a spokesman for the Altentreptow highway police. After being rescued, the people were brought to tents set up by local aid organizations until rescuers could unblock all the cars.
"We're trying to free all cars from the snow so that the drivers can get back to their vehicles and take a different road instead," Apelt said.
Hundreds of weather-related road accidents were reported in Germany after a second day of heavy snowfall, especially along the Baltic Coast. Two men were killed when their car hit a tree in Nordvorpommern.
Ferry service across the Baltic to Scandinavia was canceled, and rough sea swells flooded several streets in the cities of Flensburg and Luebeck while threatening to break levees in the village of Dahmeshoeved. Rescue teams were busy repairing damage, the Germany news agency DAPD said.
"The waves of the Baltic Sea are whipping against the boardwalk, pulling bricks out of the wall with incredible power which are flying around uncontrollably," police in Luebeck-Travemuende said in a statement.
In southeastern France, about 800 people at a snowbound airport in Lyon spent the night huddled on waiting room armchairs or camping cots, after flights in and out of the southeastern city were halted Saturday night. Flights resumed gradually Sunday morning.
France's TF1 TV said freezing rain overnight made a virtual skating rink out of one highway near Tours inFrance's Loire Valley, with some cars skidding out of control and crashing into road barriers.
In southern Poland, about 80,000 people were without electricity Sunday after snow-laden tree branches cracked, damaging several power lines, the news agency PAP reported.
In the German city of Anklam, near the Polish border, rescue team freed a regional train carrying 14 passengers that was stuck in drifts, DAPD reported. Many trains in the northeastern state of MecklenburgWestern-Pomerania were not running because of snow blocking tracks, the railways said.
Several German coastal and island towns were also cut off from electricity.
At Frankfurt airport, 61 flights were canceled and more than 400 people spent the night at the airport.
In southern Denmark, strong winds and snowfall also caused chaos on the roads. Armored military tanks were put on duty to assist emergency vehicles through the snow, while authorities warned that big "wind-sensitive vehicles" should not cross the Oresund bridge to Sweden.
In Britain, Press Association news agency put the number of weather-related deaths at 26 — including a woman who died after being found lying in the snow in a wooded area in northern England, and a 90-year-old woman who fell and froze to death in her garden earlier this week.
British forecasters predicted temperatures would remain frigid in many areas for the next week. The Red Cross and the military have been mobilized to deliver supplies to snowbound Britons. British Gas said it had experienced its busiest week on record with many calls reporting broken boilers and frozen pipes.
In Croatia, snow swelled rivers and triggered emergency anti-flood measures. A number of houses were flooded in the southern town of Metkovic, forcing some residents to use small boats to reach polling stations during Sunday's presidential runoff, state-run news agency HINA reported.
___
Associated Press writers Raphael Satter in London, Vanessa Gera in Warsaw, Jamey Keaten in Paris and Malin Rising in Stockholm, and Snjezana Vukic in Zagreb, Croatia, contributed to this report.

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China becomes biggest exporter, edging out Germany

Posted by Ahmed on 1:34 PM

China becomes biggest exporter, edging out Germany

FILE - A worker stands in front of containers at the newly open Yangshan deepAP – FILE - A worker stands in front of containers at the newly open Yangshan deep water port in this Dec. …
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^DJI10,618.19+11.33
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By JOE McDONALD, AP Business Writer – 2 hrs 33 mins ago
BEIJING – Already the biggest auto market and steel maker, Chinaedged past Germany in 2009 to become the top exporter, yet another sign of its rapid rise and the spread of economic power from West to East.
Total 2009 exports were more than $1.2 trillion, China's customs agency said Sunday. That was ahead of the 816 billion euros ($1.17 trillion) forecast for Germany by its foreign trade organization, BGA.
China's new status is mostly symbolic but highlights its growing presence as an industrial power, major buyer of oil, iron ore and other commodities and, increasingly, as an investor and key voice inmanaging the global economy.
Its ability to unseat longtime export leader Germany reflects the ability of agile, low-cost Chinese manufacturers to keep selling abroad even as other exporters have been hammered by a slump in global demand.
China overtook Germany in 2007 as the third-largest economy and is expected to unseat Japan as No. 2 behind the United States as early as this year. Its trade boom has helped Beijing pile up the world's biggestforeign currency reserves at more than $2 trillion.
The global crisis speeded China's rise up the ranks as a 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) government stimulus kept its economy and consumption growing while the U.S. and other markets struggled with recession. Chinese economic growth rose to 8.9 percent in the third quarter of 2009 and the government is forecasting a full-year expansion of 8.3 percent.
On Friday, data released by an industry group showed China topped the slumping United States in auto salesin 2009 — a status industry analysts a few years ago did not expect it to achieve until as late as 2020.
Economists and Germany's national chamber of commerce said earlier the country was likely to lose its longtime crown as top exporter.
China's exports per person are still much lower than those of Germany, which has a much smaller population of 80 million people. China sells low-tech goods such as shoes, toys and furniture, while Germany exports machinery and other higher-value products. German commentators note their country supplies the factory equipment used by top Chinese manufacturers.
"If China grows, this pushes the world's economy — and that's good for export-oriented Germany as well," an economist for the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Volker Treier, said last month.
Of course, with 1.3 billion people, China is still one of the world's poorest countries. It ranked 130th among economies in per capita income in 2008, according to the World Bank.
China's trade ended 2009 with exports rebounding in December, jumping 17.7 percent after 13 months of declines, the customs agency said.
The upturn was an "important turning point" for exporters, a customs agency economist, Huang Guohua, said on state television, CCTV.
"We can say that China's export enterprises have completely emerged from their all-time low in exports," Huang said.
Plunging demand in 2008 forced thousands of factories to close and threw millions of laborers out of work.
China's trade surplus shrank by 34.2 percent in 2009 to $196.07 billion, the customs agency said. That reflected China's stronger demand for imported raw materials and consumer goods.
Iron ore imports rose 41.6 percent to 630 million tons, while oil imports rose 13.9 percent to 1.4 billion barrels, the agency said. Economists say the buying binge has been driven in part by a Chinese effort to build up stockpiles while global prices are low.
The United States and other governments complain that part of China's export success is based on currency controls and improper subsidies that give its exporters an unfair advantage against foreign rivals.
Washington has imposed anti-dumping duties on imports of Chinese-made steel pipes and some other goods, while the European Union has imposed curbs on Chinese shoes.
The U.S. and other governments also complain that Beijing keeps its currency, the yuan, undervalued. Beijing broke the yuan's link to the dollar in 2005 and it rose gradually until late 2008, but has been frozen since then against the U.S. currency in what economists say is an effort by Beijing to keep its exporters competitive.
The dollar's weakness against the euro and some other currencies pulls down the yuan in markets that use them and makes Chinese goods even more attractive there, adding to China's trade surplus.
___
Associated Press writer Gillian Wong contributed to this report.
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Gunman Who Shot Pope John Paul II Reportedly Seeking $5M Book Deal

Posted by Ahmed on 1:31 PM

Gunman Who Shot Pope John Paul II Reportedly Seeking $5M Book Deal

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Outrage has greeted plans by Pope John Paul II’s would-be assassin to sign multi-million-dollar book and film deals after his release from prison this month.
But in a handwritten letter sent to The Sunday Times, the Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca insisted this weekend that there was "great interest from Japan to Canada" in film and television documentary projects.
Almost three decades after he shot the Polish Pope in St Peter’s Square, Rome, in 1981, it remains a mystery whether he acted alone or was part of a Soviet-led plot to eliminate a threat to communist rule in eastern Europe.
Agca, 52 yesterday, is due to be released on January 18, according to Haci Ali Ozhan, his lawyer. He has been held in Turkey since 2000 when Italy pardoned and extradited him. He had been convicted of murdering Abdi Ipekci, a Turkish journalist, two years before he shot John Paul but escaped from jail.
Agca, who described himself in his letter as “sane and strong both physically and psychologically,” has reportedly sought $2 million for an exclusive television interview and $5 million for two books, including his autobiography. He has also written to Dan Brown, the author of the bestselling The Da Vinci Code, about a book entitled The Vatican Code, to be followed by a film.
“My plan is to proclaim the end of the world and to write the PERFECT GOSPEL [sic] ... I will proclaim the Perfect Christianity that Vatican [sic] has never understood,” Agca wrote in the letter to Brown. He did not say whether he would speak about the shooting of John Paul.
Arrested just after the shooting, Agca at first named three Bulgarians as his accomplices, saying he had been paid $1.2 million. But at their trial he declared himself Jesus Christ and they were acquitted.

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