Posted on 07/25/2003 9:42:59 AM PDT by Polycarp
Italian prosecutors have concluded the Mafia murdered the Italian banker, Roberto Calvi, who was found dead more than 20 years ago.
Prosecutors have named four people suspected of carrying out the killing, and they have been given 20 days to reply to the accusations or face formal charges.
The original coroner's report said that Calvi, who was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London, had committed suicide.
He was known as "God's banker", because of his close links with the Vatican.
Those now facing a murder charge are Pippo Calo, a Mafia gangster already serving a long prison sentence, Flavio Carboni and Ernesto Diotallevi, described as go-betweens and Mr Carboni's Austrian girlfriend, Manuela Kleinszig.
Mr Carboni's lawyer, Renato Borzone, has already responded saying there is no proof Mr Calvi was murdered, adding that "prosecutors are relying on a phoney testimony by Mafia turncoats" to make their case.
"Today, a new battle begins to find the truth on Calvi's death," he said.
Grim demise
Calvi was found hanging from scaffolding beneath Blackfriars Bridge in central London in June, 1982 with bricks in his pockets and $15,000 on his person.
After the initial suicide ruling, a second coroner returned an open verdict on the 62-year-old banker.
Rome prosecutors agreed to review the case last year after an independent inquiry concluded Calvi had not killed himself.
Calvi key dates
1971: Becomes president of Banco Ambrosiano
1981: Convicted of corruption, but bailed pending appeal
11 Jun 1982: Leaves Italy with a suitcase full of documents
19 Jun 1982: Body found
Jul 1982: Suicide verdict
Jul 1983: Open verdict at second inquest
1997: Italian police charge two with murder
Oct 2002: Forensic report says Calvi murdered
Mr Calvi's son, Carlo, was 29 when his father died and now lives in Canada.
He says he has said all along that the Mafia was responsible for his father's death.
"From the beginning we had identified criminal elements of the Mafia living in London, as having organised my father's murder," he told the BBC.
"Of course we think that this is at the level of the executioner and that the murder was organised by politicians. The Mafia had simply the role of carrying out the murder."
Calvi had worked his way up the corporate ladder to become director-general and president of the Banco Ambrosiano, which he transformed from a small regional bank into a major international player.
At the time of his death billions of lire was owed to the Banco Ambrosiano by several Panamanian companies which were linked to the Vatican's Institute of Religious Works.
The Vatican denied legal responsibility for the bank's downfall but acknowledged "moral involvement", and paid $241m to creditors.
The bank collapsed in a scandal that implicated the Mafia and international freemasonry.
In their report, prosecutors say they believe Calvi was murdered by the Sicilian Mafia and mainland Italian mobsters, the Camorra, as punishment for pocketing money they had asked him to launder.
Seems the Europeans have something similar to Arkancide on their side of the pond as well.
I remember reading the book by David Yallop on this, and how the Vatican Bank was used by the Mafia and P2 (a sort of secret Mafia) to sell $1 billion worth of fake bonds.
The banks who received the bonds honored them even after discovering they were fake in order to not embarass the Vatican and/or themselves.
«Pope John Paul II was in the unique position to bring all Luciani’s plans to fruition. Not one of Luciani’s proposed changes became a reality. Whoever had murdered the Pope had not murdered in vain.
«Villot was again appointed Secretary of State. Cody remained in control of Chicago. Marcinckus, aided by Mennini, de Strobel and Monsignor de Bonis, continued to control the Vatican Bank and continued to ensure that its criminal activities with Banco Ambrosiano flourished. Calvi and his P2 bosses, Gelli and Ortolani, were free to continue their massive thefts and frauds under the protection of the Vatican Bank. Sindona was able, at least in the short term, to maintain his freedom in New York. Baggio did not go to Venice. The corrupt Poletti remained Cardinal Vicar of Rome.»
«Many millions of words have been written since the election of Karol Wojtyla in attempts to analyse and understand what manner of man he is. He is the kind of man who could allow men like Villot, Cody, Marcinkus, Mennini, de Strobel, de Bonis and Poletti to remain in office. Marcinkus is directly answerable to the Pope and for the Pope to be unaware of the degree of guilt that clings to Marcinkus defies belief...»
«Wojtyla did nothing... it is the Papacy of double standards: one set for the Pope and another for the rest of mankind. The Papacy of John Paul II has become a triumph for the wheeler dealers, for the corrupt, for the international thieves like Calvi, Gelli and Sindona, while His Holiness has maintained a very highly publicized image not unlike some perpetual rock and roll tour. The men behind the tarmac-kissing star are ensuring that it is business as usual and takings at the box office over the past five years have boomed...
«With the election of Wojtyla it was straight back to the values of Paul VI, with interest. With regard to the infiltration of the Vatican by Freemasons, for example, the Vatican through the current Pope, has now not only taken on board a variety of Masons from a variety of Lodges but it has also acquired its own in-house version. Its name is Opus Dei — God’s Work.»
"international freemasonry"
I haven't seen those two words together in years...
Most people only think of this group as a local (regional at most), fraternal bunch of good 'ol guys serving their communities...
"Wherefore we see that men are publicly tempted by the many allurements of pleasure; that there are journals and pamphlets with neither moderation nor shame; that stage-plays are remarkable for license; that designs for works of art are shamelessly sought in the laws of a so-called realism; that the contrivances of a soft and delicate life are most carefully devised; and that all the blandishments of pleasure are diligently sought out by which virtue may be lulled to sleep. Wickedly, also, but at the same time quite consistently, do those act who do away with the expectation of the joys of heaven, and bring down all happiness to the level of mortality, and, as it were, sink it in the earth. Of what We have said the following fact, astonishing not so much in itself as in its open expression, may serve as a confirmation. For, since generally no one is accustomed to obey crafty and clever men so submissively as those whose soul is weakened and broken down by the domination of the passions, there have been in the sect of the Freemasons some who have plainly determined and proposed that, artfully and of set purpose, the multitude should be satiated with a boundless license of vice, as, when this had been done, it would easily come under their power and authority for any acts of daring..."
"...With the greatest unanimity the sect of the Freemasons also endeavors to take to itself the education of youth. They think that they can easily mold to their opinions that soft and pliant age, and bend it whither they will; and that nothing can be more fitted than this to enable them to bring up the youth of the State after their own plan. Therefore, in the education and instruction of children they allow no share, either of teaching or of discipline, to the ministers of the Church; and in many places they have procured that the education of youth shall he exclusively in the hands of laymen, and that nothing which treats of the most important and most holy duties of men to God shall be introduced into the instructions on morals."
-- Pope Leo XIII
Humanum Genus - Encyclical on Freemasonry - Promulgated on April 20, 1884
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