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Bulgarian accused of plotting to kill late Pope dies

Sergei Antonov, the Bulgarian accused of plotting the failed assassination bid against late Pope John Paul II on behalf of the Soviet Union, has died of natural causes, officials said yesterday.

Antonov, 59, was found dead in his apartment in downtown Sofia, the interior ministry said. It did not reveal the cause of the death, but doctors said he had probably died two days earlier.

A former representative of Bulgaria's national airline in Rome, Antonov was accused, but later acquitted, of working as an agent for Bulgaria's communist-era secret services, which were closely tied to the Soviet KGB, and planning the May 13, 1981 attack.
Read entire article at New Zealand Herald