Defence lawyers say Calvi's death was suicide
Defence lawyers cited forensic reports today to argue that suicide, not murder, was the real cause of the 1982 death of the Italian financier known as “God’s banker” because of his close ties to the Vatican.
Five people, including a convicted Mafia figure, went on trial last month for the murder of Roberto Calvi, whose body was found hanging from scaffolding under London’s Blackfriars Bridge on June 18, 1982, with rocks and cash stuffed into his suit.
The death was originally ruled a suicide, but Calvi’s family pressed for further investigation and Italian prosecutors concluded two years ago that based on more recent reports he had been slain.
In the trial’s second hearing, defence lawyers cited an initial assessment by British forensic experts that the banker had killed himself and said that even a consultant for the prosecution had indicated there were no elements suggesting foul play in the case.
“The initial analysis of a body is always crucial and usually correct,” said lawyer Renato Borzone. He said the first autopsy report on Calvi’s death “stated that there were no reasons to believe that it was a murder.”
Calvi was found dead as his Banco Ambrosiano collapsed in one of Italy’s largest fraud scandals – one that also implicated the Vatican’s bank.
Prosecutors allege that one of the five defendants, Giuseppe “Pippo” Calo, ordered Calvi killed.
Prosecutors believe that Calvi was laundering money for the Mafia, court documents show. They allege Calo ordered the murder because mob bosses thought the banker had appropriated some of the money and were afraid he would talk in the wake of the scandal that overwhelmed his bank.
Calo, nicknamed Cosa Nostra’s “cashier” by the Italian media for his alleged laundering of mob money, was convicted years ago of Mafia charges unconnected to Calvi’s death.
The other defendants are businessmen Ernesto Diotallevi and Flavio Carboni, Carboni’s Austrian ex-girlfriend Manuela Kleinszig and Calvi’s driver and bodyguard Silvano Vittor.
Prosecutors allege the group worked to deliver Calvi to the people who killed him.
Over 23 years of intrigue and lengthy inquiries, experts have produced conflicting reports on the death, at one point recreating the scene of his death to try to come to a conclusion.
The Banco Ambrosiano collapsed following the disappearance of £755m (€1.1bn) in loans the bank had provided to several dummy companies in Latin America.
The Vatican had provided letters of credit for the loans, and the Vatican’s bank agreed to pay £145 million to Ambrosiano’s creditors but denied any wrongdoing.
The trial is set to continue next Wednesday.
