ISTANBUL, Turkey — After 25 years behind bars for trying to assassinate Pope John Paul II and fatally gunning down a journalist, Mehmet Ali Agca was released from prison — and promptly gave his supporters and his enemies the slip.

Within hours of tasting freedom Thursday for the first time since wounding John Paul in 1981, Agca disappeared out the back door of a military hospital.

He left behind hordes of journalists, along with questions about whether he will be forced to complete the mandatory military service he dodged as a young man.

Scores of ultranationalist supporters cheered his release and tossed flowers at the sedan that whisked him through the gates of a high-security prison.

But many Turks expressed dismay that Agca, 48, served just five years for the slaying of newspaper columnist Abdi Ipekci. Justice Minister Cemil Cicek ordered a review to see whether any errors were committed in releasing him. He said Agca would remain free until an appeals court reviewed the case.

Cicek said Agca's release was not "a guaranteed right," noting there have been several cases in which convicts freed by mistake were returned to prison. He said Agca benefited from amnesties, passed by previous governments, which have freed tens of thousands of criminals over the past decades.

Agca, white-haired and wearing a bright blue sweater and jeans, was freed five years after he was pardoned by Italy and extradited to Turkey. He had served 20 years in Italy, where John Paul forgave him in a visit to his prison cell in 1983.

Cicek said a military court had ordered Agca's execution in 1980 for murdering Ipekci but the sentence was commuted to life in prison in 2002, after Turkey abolished the death penalty. The life sentence was translated into 36 years.

Mustafa Demirbag, Agca's lawyer, said the local court that ordered the release deducted his time served in Italy and Turkey, where he previously was jailed for six months before escaping in 1979.

Ipekci's family objected to the decision to free Agca, but another local court in Istanbul ruled this week that his release was lawful, Cicek said.

After his release, Agca — who initially was handcuffed — reported to a military recruitment center.

Agca, who avoided the draft in the 1970s, then went for a routine checkup at a military hospital, leaving through a back door only used by high military commanders. His whereabouts were not immediately known.

The semiofficial Anatolia news agency said the hospital would later screen Agca and issue a report on whether he was fit for mandatory military service.