by emad » Sun Sep 25, 2005 11:54 am
September 25, 2005 <br><br>The Sunday Times<br><br>Hanged banker: four go on trial<br>John Follain<br> <br> <br> <br>NEARLY a quarter of a century after Roberto Calvi, the Italian financier, was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London, four people are to go on trial in Rome next month accused of his murder. <br><br>A first inquest, held a month after his death in June 1982, ruled that Calvi, 62, had committed suicide. His body was discovered the day after he had been sacked as chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, which had close links with the Vatican. A year later a second inquest returned an open verdict. <br> <br>After a review of the evidence, however, Italian forensic experts concluded that Calvi — whose pockets had been stuffed with bricks and banknotes — had been murdered. Luca Tescaroli and Anna Maria Monteleone, the public prosecutors who investigated the case, claimed that the mafia had been behind the alleged killing. <br><br>The four who will appear before the Rome Court of Assizes on October 6 are Flavio Carboni, a Sardinian businessman and friend of Calvi; Pippo “The Cashier” Calo, an alleged Sicilian mafia boss; Manuela Kleinszig, Carboni’s former girlfriend; and Ernesto Diotallevi, a Rome businessman. <br><br>They are accused of luring Calvi to London at the mafia’s request to punish him for withholding millions of pounds that they had allegedly given him to launder. <br><br>Prosecutors believe Calvi’s alleged killers may also have been trying to prevent him from blackmailing the Institute for Religious Works (IOR) — better known as the Vatican Bank — with which his bank had dealings. <br><br>The four will attempt to turn the tables on their accusers by calling Vatican officials as witnesses — among them the American-born Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, 81, president of the IOR from 1971 to 1989, who now lives in Arizona. The intention is to bolster their claim that Calvi was under such pressure from the church that he took his own life. <br><br>“The Vatican must clarify its relations with Calvi,” said Renato Borzone, Carboni’s lawyer.<br> <br> <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1796099,00.html">www.timesonline.co.uk/new...99,00.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <p></p><i></i>
