Pope John Paul II faced assassination plots in Poland

Pope John Paul II,the first non-Italian pontiff since 1520 to rule Vatican till his death nearly 4 years back,actually faced two assassination plots in his native Poland.

Pope John Paul II,the first non-Italian pontiff since 1520 to rule the Vatican City for almost 27 years till his death nearly four years back,actually faced 8220;two assassination plots in his native Poland8221;.

A senior member of Polish Catholic Church has claimed that the late pontiff was the subject of two plots against his life during his 1983 and 1987 pilgrimages to Poland apart from the two known assassination attempts.

According to Father Zdzislaw Krol,the Chancellor of Warsaw Metropolitan Curia,before the start of 1987 pilgrimage the Church received information from a woman of a plan to kill Pope John Paul II in the town of Czestochowa,a focal point of Polish catholicism,8217;The Daily Telegraph8217; reported.

Taking the tip-off seriously,the Church passed on the information to the Communist authorities in Poland and 8220;a man8221; was arrested. The suspect,it turned out,was Bulgarian.

It may be mentioned here that many believe that the man who made an assassination attempt on John Paul II in 1981,Turk Mehmet Ali Agca,was working on the orders of Bulgarian Secret Service,though an official probe concluded three years back that the erstwhile Soviet Union was behind the plot.

Information on the other plot,Father Krol said,came from a source in the Austrian embassy,who alleged that three Germans linked to the left-wing terrorist group,Red Brigade,had managed to get into Poland,and intended to murder the Pope at an open-air mass in Warsaw.

The revelations came just days after a historian had claimed that Poland8217;s communist authorities may have foiled a 8220;plot8221; to kill John Paul on his 1987 pilgrimage after they had received a letter in which the author said he would 8220;shoot the Pope in the head8221;.

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While the first known assassination attempt took place in 1981 in the Vatican City,the second one was in Portugal in 1982 when a man tried to stab Pope John Paul with a bayonet.