Portugal has refused permission to the failed Turkish assasin of pope John Paul II to attend the annual papal mass at the Fatima shrine presided over by Pope Benedict XVI, his lawyer said today .

The Portuguese government said a visit by Mehmet Ali Agca would not be appropriate at the moment "on political and security considerations", lawyer Haci Ali Ozhan told AFP.

Ozhan had sent a letter to Portugese Prime Mininster Jose Socrates in March, conveying Agca's desire to pray at the Fatima Shrine at Thursday's giant outdoor mass and meet Benedict XVI.

Agca would still like to visit Fatima in the near future, the lawyer said.

Fatima is a town where three children are said to have seen apparitions of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, in 1917.

John Paul II said it was Our Lady of Fatima who saved his life during Agca's assassination attempt.

Agca was a 23-year-old far-right militant, on the run from Turkish justice, when he shot the pope in the Vatican's Saint Peter's Square on May 13, 1981, leaving him seriously injured. His motive remains a mystery.

He was released from an Ankara prison in January after spending almost three decades in Italian and Turkish prisons for the assassination attempt and crimes committed in his homeland.

The 52-year-old describes himself as the second Messiah and has claimed to be writing the "true Bible".