40 years ago, he wanted to kill Pope John Paul II: “I had repeated the gesture 1000 times to be sure of succeeding”


The Brussels life of Juan Fernandez Krohn: no regrets but 1,340.01 euros in pension per month.

Exactly forty years ago, on May 12, 1982, a man wearing a cassock emerged from the crowd that had come to acclaim the Pope at Fatima. His name was Juan Fernandez Krohn, and he lives today in Belgium.

He pointed an old weapon at John Paul II, a bayonet from the First World War bought the day before in Paris on a flea market, trying to carry out in Portugal the crime that the Turk Ali Ağca had missed the previous year on the square Saint Pierre.

The Portuguese justice sentenced him to 6 and a half years. Released halfway through the sentence, declared undesirable all over Europe, Krohn looked for a host country. He found one. Belgium.

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