Mehmet Ali Ağca ( ; born 9 January 1958 ) is a Turkish assassin and Grey Wolves member who murdered left-wing journalist Abdi İpekçi on 1 February 1979 , and later shot and wounded Pope John Paul II on 13 May 1981 , after escaping from a Turkish prison . After serving 19 years of imprisonment in Italy where he was visited by the Pope , he was deported to Turkey , where he served a ten-year sentence . In 2007 , he converted to Roman Catholicism and was released from jail on 18 January 2010 . 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 and the state-sponsored Counter-Guerrilla
shot and wounded Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II assassination attempt
Mehmet Ali Ağca