?God?s banker? murder suspects acquitted By Tony Barber in Rome Financial Times: June 7 2007
All five defendants in one of modern Europe?s most mysterious murder cases were acquitted on Wednesday of killing Roberto Calvi, the Italian financier known as ?God?s banker? on account of his illicit work on behalf of the Vatican?s bank. The Rome court where the case had been heard since October 2005 acquitted four defendants on the grounds that there was ?insufficient proof? that they had murdered Calvi. The court fully acquitted the fifth. The verdict was delivered almost exactly 25 years after Calvi?s body was found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London, his clothes stuffed with bricks, stones and large amounts of cash in international currencies. The acquittals, which may be challenged by prosecutors, left an air of continuing uncertainty, over exactly how Calvi died and why. The trial recalled an era, now a distant memory to some Italians, when the country seemed full of corrupt politicians, businessmen, secret servicemen, mafia bosses and extreme leftwing and rightwing terrorists running amok. Lawyers for the main defendants argued that Calvi, who was facing professional disgrace and personal ruin at the time of his murder, had probably committed suicide or, at least, that there was no incontrovertible proof that he had been murdered. Among the most important of the five defendants was Giuseppe ?Pippo? Cal?, a Sicilian mafia boss who is already serving multiple life sentences for various crimes, including a 1984 train bombing in Italy that killed 16 people. Prosecutors alleged that Mr Cal? had ordered Calvi?s murder. Another prominent defendant was Flavio Carboni, a Sardinian property developer and businessman who accompanied Calvi on the secret trip that he made from Italy to the UK, using a false passport, just days before his death in June 1982. Other defendants included Ernesto Diotallevi, an Italian businessman with alleged ties to the Roman criminal underworld, and Silvano Vittor, a former smuggler who was Calvi?s driver and bodyguard. Prosecutors had sought life prison terms for all these four accused. However, Manuela Kleinszig, the Austrian-born fifth defendant, who was Mr Carboni?s mistress at the time of the Calvi murder, was found not guilty because the prosecutors themselves asked for her acquittal, having become convinced that there was little or no concrete evidence against her. Although British police in 1982 treated Calvi?s death as a suicide, the authorities in Rome were convinced that it was linked to his connections with the Vatican?s bank, the secret Propaganda Due (P2) masonic lodge and Italian political parties. Calvi, who was chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, a private bank, laundered money through the Vatican?s bank, financed clandestine arms deals and channelled funds illegally to Italy?s political parties. Banco Ambrosiano collapsed soon after his death. Prosecutors alleged at the trial that Mr Cal? and the three other male defendants killed Calvi because they wanted to punish him for embezzling mafia funds, protect the profits from Banco Ambrosiano?s illegal activities, and prevent Calvi from revealing everything he knew about the Vatican?s bank, P2 and other sensitive matters. Prosecutors in Rome started a new investigation into Calvi?s death in 1998 and concluded that he had been killed at a distance of about 100 metres from Blackfriars Bridge, where his body was strung up to make it look like a suicide case. Experts who followed the Rome trial said the prosecutors had found it hard to present a water-tight case because, more than 20 years after Calvi died, some potentially important witnesses found it hard to remember events or refused to give testimony at all. Others were untraceable or even dead. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
