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Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981 was released yesterday, proclaiming the end of the world to reporters gathered outside the Turkish prison where he spent almost 30 years.
Agca was released in Turkey's capital Ankara, nearly 30 years after the assassination attempt in St. Peter's Square.
He served 19 years in an Italian prison for the attack, before being pardoned on the Pope's initiative in 2000.
However Agca was then extradited to serve a sentence in Turkey for crimes including the 1979 murder of a newspaper editor.
He told reporters outside the prison that the world would end this century, when "all humanity" would die. "Then everyone will know that I am the Christ eternal," foreign media reports quoted him as saying.
Agca's family is reportedly preparing to earn up to $50 million in copyright earnigs from his story, being brokered for millions of dollars to movie studios, television channels and Da Vinci code author Dan Brown.
