Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who shot and seriously wounded Pope John Paul II in 1981, was released from a Turkish prison on Thursday and immediately taken in handcuffs to a military recruitment office.

His lawyers say the Turkish army wants to claim Agca, 48, for missed military service, a legal obligation for Turkish men.

"We are now at the military recruitment office. The procedure for his military service has started. We are waiting for the results," lawyer Mustafa Demirbag told Reuters.

Agca served 19 years in an Italian prison for the assassination attempt before being pardoned at the Pope's behest in 2000. He was then extradited to Turkey to serve a separate sentence in an Istanbul jail for robbery and murder.

Under new Turkish laws, his time served in Italy was deducted from the 25 years left on his sentence in Turkey for the 1979 murder of liberal newspaper editor, Abdi Ipekci.

Agca, dressed in blue jeans, a blue sweater and training shoes, looked solemn as he walked out of the Istanbul jail under heavy police escort. He made no comment to the 100 or so journalists from Turkey and abroad outside the prison gate.

A few well-wishers, apparently Turkish ultra-nationalists with whom he once worked, threw flowers at the white car which whisked him away.

His release has sparked criticism in Turkey.

"Day of shame," said the centrist Milliyet newspaper, for which the slain Ipekci worked. It criticised Justice Minister Cemil Cicek for not intervening in the case to keep Agca behind bars longer.

Agca has given conflicting reasons why he raised his gun above the crowd in Rome's St. Peter's Square and shot the Pope.

At a 1986 trial, prosecutors failed to prove charges that Bulgarian secret services had hired Agca to kill the Pope on behalf of the Soviet Union.

The so-called "Bulgarian Connection" trial ended with an "acquittal for lack of sufficient evidence" of three Turks and three Bulgarians charged with conspiring along with Agca.

The Polish-born Pontiff, who is credited by historians with helping the collapse of communism in eastern Europe in 1989, cleared Bulgaria of any link to the assassination bid during a visit to Sofia in 2002. John Paul died last year aged 84.

PHOTO CAPTION

Pope John Paul II meets with his would-be assassin, Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca, in a cell of Rome's Rebibbia prison in this December 27, 1983 file photo. (Reuters)