Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
ROME (AP) — Alitalia Flight 488 landed in Krakow, Poland on Tuesday with some very special cargo on board: the gun used to shoot Pope John Paul II.
Monsignor Dariusz Ras, the Polish priest who runs the John Paul II museum in the late pope's childhood home in Wadowice, transported the pistol from Rome to Poland for the museum's upcoming exhibit in honor of John Paul's April 27 canonization, Alitalia said.
Mehmet Ali Agca used the Browning HP 9mm handgun to shoot John Paul in the abdomen in St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981. The pope spent nearly three weeks in the hospital recovering.
The weapon has been held by Rome's department of penal administration, which lent it to Ras for the three-year exhibit.
Agca was released from prison in 2010.
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
