"It was destiny. And it was destiny he survived. I am very glad he didn't die.

"The Pope became like a brother to me. When he died [in 2005] I felt like my brother or my best friend had died."

After 29 years in jail he has renounced his violent past and neighbours know him better as the kind man who daily feeds stray cats and dogs.

He said: "I think of how I shot the Pope on most days... not every day now but most days.

"I'm a good man now. I try to live my life properly. When I shot him I was 23. I was young and I was ignorant." Read more

"I had met with a pope before. It is quite normal to meet with him (Pope Francis) as well," said gunman Mehmet Ali Agca in a written statement.

In mentioning his first papal meeting Agca was referring to John Paul II, who visited him in an Italian prison in 1983 after the attack.

Despite requesting the Vatican to meet Pope Francis, Agca says he has not yet received a response.

Agca fired four bullets into John Paul II on May 13 1981, while the pontiff was riding in an open car through St Peter's Square in the Vatican.

The pope was wounded in the abdomen, in his left hand and in the right arm but his condition was not critical as the bullets missed vital organs.

Agca, who served 19 years in an Italian prison for the assassination attempt, was pardoned by John Paul II in 2000.

He was later extradited to his home country to serve a 10-year sentence for other crimes, including the murder of a prominent Turkish journalist, Abdi Ipekci.

During his three-day visit, the spiritual leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics will meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Mehmet Gormez, the head of religious affairs department, Diyanet.

The pontiff will also offer Mass at the Holy Spirit Cathedral in Istanbul and privately meet Istanbul-based Fener Greek Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Churches.

Sources

• Matters India
• Image: NBC News

In an autobiography, the would-be assassin claims he was trained by Iranian forces and given the mission to kill the Pontiff by the ayatollah himself.

"Should we believe Agca this time?" said the director of the Vatican press office, Father Federico Lombardi. "I don't think so."

"The other hundred or so versions of the facts that Agca has given now, along with his previous claims, are a bit too much to be believable," the Vatican spokesman said.

He added that whenever he had been able to check one of Agca's assertions, he had found it to be false.

Father Lombardi did confirm Agca's report that when John Paul II visited him in a Roman prison, the two spoke about the message of Our Lady of Fatima and the Virgin Mary's involvement in saving the Pope's life.

However, the papal spokesman denied that both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI wrote personal letters to Agca urging him to convert to Christianity.

He said he had discussed Agca's claims with Cardinal Stanslaw Dzwisz, who served as Pope John Paul II's secretary at the time and was the only person present at the meeting between the Holy Father and the assassin.

Father Lombardi gave his view that the book was clearly a publicity stunt and that "practically everything I was able to verify is false".

Agca shot and wounded John Paul II on May 13, 1981, in St Peter's Square, Rome. He was released from prison in 2010.

Previously Agca had suggested that Bulgaria and the Soviet Union's KGB were behind the attack, but then backed away from that assertion.

Sources:

Vatican Insider

Zenit

Image: The Telegraph