New Probe Into Stasi Archives

Stasi archive office's new investigation into the assassination attempt of Pope John Paul II will most probably deny Bulgaria's involvement in the shooting, according to the spokesman of the Stasi Documents Centre in Berlin.

I believe that by the end of the year the results of the previous investigations will be confirmed, absolving Bulgaria of any connection, Christian Booss told local private Darik radio.

The new investigation into the assassination attempt of Pope John Paul II has been launched in response to the growing interest, following the reports in Italian newspapers.

Earlier in the week Marianne Birthler, who heads the agency overseeing the Stasi archives, announced that numerous records from the 1982-1985 correspondence between Bulgaria's Communist-era authorities and the East German spy agency related to the shooting against the pope have been recently discovered in a very poor condition.

The files were apparently about to be destroyed.

On 13 May 1981 Pope John Paul II was shot and seriously wounded by Turkish gunman Ali Agca. Italian investigators are positive that the Turkish mafia was serving the Bulgarian and Soviet Secret Services.