by emad » Fri Dec 02, 2005 2:08 pm
GOD'S BANKER" MURDER TRIAL BEGINS: COULD EXPOSE VATICAN FINANCIAL SCHEMES, RAISE QUESTIONS OVER DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY, RECOGNITION <br><br>From: AMERICAN ATHEISTS INC<br><br>Trial has begun in Rome, Italy over the 1982 murder of Roberto Calvi, the man dubbed "God's Banker" who had close ties to the Vatican, global financial institutions, organized crime and a shadowy neo-fascist movement.<br><br> Calvi was found hanging with his hands tied behind his back under Blackfriar's Bridge in London on June 18, 1982 Bricks and thousands in British Pound currency were stuffed in his pockets.<br><br> Investigators originally ruled the death a suicide, but in 1998 an Italian judge ordered the exhumation of Calvi's body for a new autopsy and a subsequent probe into the incident. Authorities began a new investigation in 2002 after medical experts revealed that Calvi had in fact been strangled near the bridge and then hung from it. Several defendants, including a convicted mobster were indicted, and went on trial last month.<br><br> Legal proceedings will resume on November 28.<br><br> While the case has remained a sensation on the continent even after more than two decades, news coverage of the trial by American media has been sketchy. Many of the personalities, events and details in the Calvi story involve Europe. But it is the recurrent "Vatican connection" through a Chicago archbishop, Calvi's indirect ties to the collapse of a major New York financial institution, and the peculiar relationship between the Holy See and the U.S. government which provides a distinct American flavor to the mysterious case.<br><br> The man at the center of the story, Roberto Calvi, was head of Banco Ambrosiano, a private financial institution with links to the Vatican. The bank failed in one of the most catastrophic financial debacles in modern Italian history, with the equivalent of nearly two billion dollars vanishing into off-shore accounts. Banco Ambrosiano was also involved with the Vatican Bank, benignly titled the "Institute for Religious Works" or IOR. Subsequent investigation uncovered a rogue cast of characters, and evidence that the IOR and Ambrosiano were financial safe havens and pipelines for "flight capital" and other illegally laundered monies.<br><br> ¢ù Among those linked to Calvi was Archbishop Paul Marcinkus. Ordained in Chicago, Marcinkus was posted to the Holy See in Rome, and served in the Vatican Secretariat of State. He rapidly moved up within Vatican bureaucracy from personal papal bodyguard to head of the IOR -- a post he held from 1971 to 1989. There he worked closely with international financier Michael Sindona to expand the Vatican's portfolio of international holdings, transforming the Institute for Religious Works into a quiet but reliable shelter for questionable capital. Sindona, laundering money from associates in organized crime, funneled huge sums of money through Banco Ambrosiano and the IOR. The Vatican Bank also worked closely with the United States government as a cover money conduit to groups like the Solidarity Trade Union in Poland. Thanks to Marcinkus, Sindona was to become a "man of confidence" within the Vatican who enjoyed unique access to officials of the Holy See, even the pope.<br><br> ¢ù Michael Sindona had been among Calvi's patrons at the Banco Ambrosiano, and helped expand the small "Catholic bank" into an international financial institution. Sindona's financial manipulations make a story of their own, and investigations after the Ambrosiano collapse would document how his elaborate international network of banks and offshore companies served as vehicle for laundering dirty money earned from everything from heroin traffic to "soft money" investments.<br><br> ¢ù Perhaps the most mysterious character in the Calvi saga was Liccio Gelli. A former member of the fascist Black Shirts Battalion and liaison between the Mussolini regime and the infamous Herman Goring SS Division in World War II, Gelli survived the conflict and amassed an impressive list of contacts. He also obtained sensitive information on hundreds of key political, military and financial figures not only in Italy but throughout Europe, Latin America and elsewhere thanks to his access of files from the Italian secret service (OVRA) and possibly British Intelligence. Gelli helped to smuggle Klaus Barbie, the infamous "Butcher of Lyon" to safe haven in Argentina, and even managed to sell his services to the CIA and NATO. He also ingratiated himself with the regime of Juan Person in Argentin<br><br> In 1963, Gelli began the takeover an obscure Italian Masonic lodge, Propaganda Due or P-2, and using the blackmail files of the OVRA and other information, began aggressively recruiting members of the military and intelligence services, as well as key financial and political figures. (The Grand Lodge of Italy quickly severed recognition ties with P-2 when it learned of Gelli's activities.) P-2 expanded its operations to Argentina, Venezuela, Paraguay, Bolivia, France, Portugal and Nicaragua. Associated of Klaus Barbie were recruited, as were leaders from death squads operating in Latin America. One member was the notorious Jose Lopez Gega, an Argentinean clerical fascist who also ran a cocaine smuggling operation into the United States.<br><br> Gelli, like Sindona, enjoyed unprecedented access to the Vatican thanks to his close friendship with Cardinal Paolo Bertoli of the Holy See's Diplomatic Corps. Bertoli is known to have introduced Gelli to Paul Marcinkus. Another close associate and member of this "Gang of Four" was Umberrto Ortolani, a former OVRA Intelligence Officer and co-patron for Calvi while he was moving up in the Banco Ambrosiano. Ortolani was also tied to a secretive Roman Catholic order known as the Knights of Malta, and was elevated by Pope Paul VI to the status of "Gentleman of his Holiness." He also sponsored Liccio Gelli for membership in the Knights of Malta.<br><br> ¢ù As the scandal enveloping Calvi and the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano unfolded, police raided Gelli's private offices on March 17, 1981 and seized a treasure trove of documents including one of the membership lists of P-2. Among the 962 members identified in the papers were 43 generals in the Italian armed forces, eight admirals, 43 members of Parliament, all of the heads of the respective security and intelligence services, editors and publishers of major Italian papers and, of course, Michael Sindona and Roberto Calvi. Word of several other lists eventually surfaced, and one P-2 member "went public" with charges that key functionaries of the Holy See were involved in the clandestine group. The cell was shut down by prosecutors amidst evidence that Gelli and P-2 were establishing a "state within a state," and were plotting what amounted to a fascist coup. He eluded police for years, was captured in Cannes, then escaped prison and recently died.<br><br> ¢ù Among those on trial in the murder of Roberto Calvi is gangster Flavio Carboni, considered a "fixer" with ties to police, political groups, intelligence services and the Vatican. Banco Ambrosiano backed a risky construction project Carboni had launched in Sardinia. He also admitted being with Gelli in London with Calvi after the embattled banker had fled in the wake of the Ambrosiano collapse. Skeptics say that Carboni was a close friend of Calvi's and had no credible motive for carrying out the murder.<br><br> ¢ù Carboni is the man believed to have sold the contents of a brief case Calvi had taken to London to a Czech Bishop, Pavel Hnilica. Hnilica admitted to using funds from the Vatican Bank to purchase the Calvi documents, but said that he did so because Carboni promised that this would insulate the Holy See from any publicity having to do with the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano. Today, those papers remain missing although researchers say they might contain further evidence of the ties between Calvi, Gelli, Marcinkus and illegal activities at the IOR and Ambrosiano. Hnilica was ordained a priest in the Jesuit order, and in 1964 was appointed Bishop of Rusadus.<br><br> In 1993, an Italian court convicted the Catholic prelate for his involvement in using Vatican money to obtain the briefcase.<br><br><br>MURDER AND VATICAN DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY<br> When it was learned that over a billion dollars have evaporated from Banco Ambrosiano's ledger and that the Vatican had guaranteed numerous loans with "letters of comfort" and other financial instruments, the Holy See was in the glare of public inquiry and official investigation. It was later revealed that the conservative Roman Catholic group known as Opus Dei had reportedly tried to shore up the $1.3 billion shortfall, but Calvi had already fled to England in an attempt to avoid Italian prosecutors. In 1984, the Vatican tried to close the book on the whole Calvi scandal by paying out $241 million to Ambrosiano creditors "for moral considerations" without admitting to any responsibility.<br><br> Sindona's carefully assembled empire of companies and other holdings, including Franklin National Bank in New York, all crashed in 1974. He died of poisoning while serving a prison sentence.<br><br> Eventually, police warrants were issued for Archbishop Marcinkus who was left at the helm of the Institute for Religious Works by Pope John Paul II. Marcinkus managed to avoid arrest by staying within the confines of the Vatican. Under cover of diplomatic immunity he eventually resigned from the IOR and in 1990 retired to Arizona.<br><br> That legal veil, say critics, permitted not only Marcinkus but other functionaries of the Holy See to immunize themselves from questioning and prosecution about the Calvi affair. Some point to the current scandal involving priestly pedophilia and the obstructionist attitude of the church hierarchy as examples of how the Vatican lacks the accountability and "transparency" many believers say is essential if the Holy See is to survive in the modern world. And the secrecy enveloping the Vatican as an antonymous nation state may be concealing other scandals as well. David Yallop, author of the 1984 best-seller "In God's Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I" reads like a modern detective thriller, and lays out a compelling argument suggesting that the late pope was eliminated over his threat to reform the Holy See and "clean house" at the Vatican Bank. Equally disturbing is John Cornwell's 1898 work, "A Thief in the Night: Life and Death in the Vatican."<br><br> Other provocative works like "Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis and the Swiss Banks" by Mark Aarons and John Loftus probe earlier history, and explore the people and events liking the Holy See with the Third Reich.<br><br> For many researchers, the Calvi murder is at the center of a nexus of events spanning several decades, and underscores the secretive relationship the Vatican -- through the IOR and principals like Roberto Calvi and Paul Marcinkus -- has enjoyed with powerful financial interests, intelligence services, secret political cabals and foreign governments.<br><br><br>THE VATICAN AS RELIGION AND NATION STATE<br> Among the world's religions, the Roman Catholic Church is unique in being both a faith and a nation state. The modern era witnessed the creation of the present Holy See in June, 1929 when the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini engineered the Lateran Treaty. It gave the Vatican full control over its grounds and buildings. And in exchange for supporting Mussolini's authoritarian government, the church received a check for 750 million lire, about $39 million in currency of that era used to initialize the financial institution that evolved into the Vatican bank.<br><br> Today, the Holy See has official diplomatic relations with 174 countries, as well as the European Union, Russia and the Palestine Liberation Organization. A total of 69 nations maintain accredited missions with permanent resident diplomatic staff to the Vatican. This theocratic state is also active in a number of international organizations, with permanent "observer" status in the United Nations. It also has delegations within the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the UN Industrial Development Organization. It has a staff of slightly over 3,000 employees working in Vatican City, and is a member of the World Trade Organization.<br><br> The special status has provided the Roman Catholic Church with extraordinary political influence throughout the world. Critics say that the Vatican wields considerable advantage in affecting the course of social and political developments across the globe, especially in issues pertaining to population control; rights for women, gays and other groups; and human rights. As the Banco Ambrosiano affair suggested, through institutions like the IOR the Vatican accumulated financial wealth and power involving the papacy in an unsavory arrangement with gangsters, rogue political operators and quite possibly even murder.<br><br><br>A MURDER PLOT REVEALED?<br> Beginning in 1998, the Calvi affair was back in the news when the family of the late financier had his body exhumed. The new autopsy confirmed that Calvi was murdered elsewhere, and his corpse then hanged from beneath Blackfriar's Bridge. Investigators caught a major break in the case when in December, 2002, Mafia kingpin Antonio Giuffee told police that Calvi was murdered in part for absconding with mob money being laundered through Banco Ambrosiano.<br><br> It is known that as the bank collapsed, Calvi approached friends in the Vatican to cover losses. He allegedly told associates in the Holy See that unless Ambrosiano was protected, he would expose powerful men in Italian finance and politics. Calvi disappeared the day after those frantic phone calls to the Vatican, along with the briefcase packed with sensitive documents.<br><br> Leading the effort to solve the mystery of Roberto Calvi's murder has been Carlo Calvi, the banker's son who left Italy in 1977 and now lives in Montreal, Canada.<br><br> His father, says Carlo Calvi, "was a dynamic businessman but not a good judge of people."<br><br> Police and prosecutors have zeroed in on four suspects now on trial: Flavio Carboni; his former girlfriend Manuela Kleinzig; and Pippo Calo and Ernesto Diotallevi, two "fixers" with close ties to the Mafia.<br><br> <br> <br> There are concerns, though, that the four could be scapegoats for a wider conspiracy, and that significant aspects of the case implicating the Vatican, government agencies, other banks and special interests could be conveniently ignored. The judge in the current proceedings, Mario D'Andra, has been vehement in demanding a swift trial. <br><br> "Let's try to keep in mind that this is a trial about facts that happened almost 24 years ago," he declared. And Carboni's attorney, Renato Borzone has argued that there is no proof of his client's participation in any murder, charging Italian prosecutors with "relying on a phony testimony by turncoats" in order to make their case.<br><br> On the opening day of the proceedings, Borzone told the court, "Today, a new battle begins to find the truth about Calvi's death.<br><br> Carlo Calvi theorizes that while mobsters may have executed his father, "the murder was organized by politicians. The Mafia had simply the role of carrying out the murder."<br><br> Questions linger not only about who killed Roberto Calvi, but who ordered the murder.<br><br>-- Conrad F. Goeringer,<br><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/calvi5.htm">www.atheists.org/flash.line/calvi5.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br> <p></p><i></i>
