Four people are to be tried in Rome for the murder of the Italian banker Roberto Calvi, who was found hanging underneath Blackfriars Bridge in London 23 years ago.
A judge decided yesterday, after a preliminary trial lasting nearly a year, that there was enough evidence to indict Flavio Carboni, a businessman and friend of Calvi who was one of the last to see him alive, Carboni’s former girlfriend, and two men who are claimed to have connections to the Mafia. The trial is scheduled to begin in October.
The news that the four should face trial for murder was the latest twist in a bizarre case that seems to have leapt from the pages of a Dan Brown pot-boiler – although it has been going on for so long it may have been the American thriller writer’s original inspiration.
Roberto Calvi, nicknamed “God’s Banker”, was chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, a bank founded by a priest and with close links to the Vatican, the Sicilian Mafia and the notorious rogue P2 masonic lodge. The bank went bankrupt in June 1982, with debts of around £800m. Both the Vatican and the Mafia are believed to have lost huge sums in the crash.
More » (The Independent)
