L’informe de la “comissió Mitrokhin”, encarregada pel parlament italià d’investigar les activitats dels serveis secrets comunistes a Itàlia durant la guerra freda, ha conclòs “més enllà de qualsevol dubte raonable” que la Unió Soviètica va organitzar l’atemptat contra el papa Joan Pau II el 13 de maig de 1981 a la plaça de Sant Pere del Vaticà. L’atemptat l’hauria decidit el líder soviètic i secretari general del PCUS, Léonid Brejnev, i l’hauria organitzat la GRU, el servei militar soviètic. La comissió ha obtingut la informació principalment dels arxius d’un exagent del KGB, Vasili Mitrokhin, que va desertar en els anys noranta. El politburó va decidir que Joan Pau II era un perill pel seu suport actiu al sindicat anticomunista polonès, Solidaritat.Més informació, aquí.The report also says "some elements" of the Bulgarian secret services were involved but that this was an attempt to divert attention away from the Soviet Union's alleged key role. Both Russia and Bulgaria condemned the report. A 36-page chapter on the assassination attempt was included in a wider report by parliament's Mitrokhin Commission, which probed the revelations of Vasili Mitrokhin, a senior Soviet archivist during the Cold War who defected to Britain in 1992. Pope John Paul was shot in St Peter's Square on May 13, 1981 by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca, who was arrested minutes later and convicted of attempted murder. At the time of the shooting, events in the Pope's Polish homeland were starting a domino effect which was eventually to lead to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989. The Pope was a staunch supporter of Poland's Solidarity union and most historians agree he played a vital role in events that eventually led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
