Roberto Calvi
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Roberto Calvi (Milan, April 13, 1920 - London, June 17, 1982) (aka Gian Roberto Calvini) was an Italian banker known to the press as "God's Banker", because of his close association with the Vatican. Chairman of the Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed in one of the major Italian post-war political scandals, he was murdered in London in 1982. As of 2006, investigations are continuing concerning this assassination which allegedly involved the Vatican Bank (Ambrosiano's main share-holder), the mafia (which was probably using Banco Ambrosiano for money-laundering), and the infamous Propaganda Due masonic lodge (which was closely linked to Gladio, NATO's "stay-behind" paramilitary organizations involved in the strategia della tensione in the 1970s-80s.
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Banco Ambrosiano scandal
Calvi was the chairman of one of the country's largest private banks, Banco Ambrosiano, when it went bankrupt in 1982. In 1978 the Bank of Italy had produced a report on Ambrosiano that predicted future disaster, and which had led to criminal investigations. In 1981 Calvi was imprisoned, put on trial, and sentenced to four years in jail. However, he was released pending an appeal, and he kept his position at the bank. While it has been generally believed that Calvi was dishonest, his family maintain that he had been manipulated by others and that he was innocent of the crimes attributed to him (their perspective informs Robert Hutchison's 1997 book Their Kingdom Come: Inside the Secret World of Opus Dei.)
In June 1982, the bank collapsed following the discovery of debts (according to various sources) of between 700 million and 1.5 billion dollars. Much of the money had been siphoned off via the Vatican Bank, the Istituto per le Opere Religiose (Institute of Religious Works) or IOR, which was Banco Ambrosiano's main share-holder. Calvi fled the country on a false passport, and several days later his body was found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London. His suit was stuffed with rocks and a brick had been placed in his trousers. Blackfriars Bridge was allegedly a masonically significant location, and Calvi had been a member of Licio Gelli's secret masonic lodge, P2. The British police treated Calvi's death as suicide despite evidence to the contrary. An enquiry (following Calvi's exhumation) in 1992 concluded that he had been murdered. In September of 2003, City of London Police reopened their investigation as a murder inquiry.
Prosecution of mafiosi Pippo Calò and Licio Gelli, P2's headmaster
In 1997, Italian prosecutors in Rome implicated a member of the Sicilian Mafia, Pippo Calò, in Calvi's murder, along with Flavio Carboni, a businessman with activities in many fields. Two other men, Ernesto Diotallevi (supposedly, leader of the "Banda della Magliana", the most dangerous Roman Mafia-like association) and Mafia banker Francesco Di Carlo, are also alleged to be involved in the killing.
On July 19, 2005, Licio Gelli, Propaganda Due (aka "P2")'s masonic lodge's headmaster, was formally indicted by Roman Magistrates for the murder of Calvi. Gelli, in his statement before the court, blamed figures connected with Calvi's work financing the Polish Solidarity movement, allegedly on behalf of the Vatican.
On October 5, 2005, the trial of the five individuals charged with Calvi's murder began in Rome. These were Pippo Calò, Flavio Carboni, his ex-girlfriend Manuela Kleinzig, Ernesto Diotallevi, and Calvi's driver and bodyguard Silvano Vittor.
Calvi had personal accident insurance with Unione Italiana, and a claim by those insurers on their London reinsurance led to litigation: see Fisher v Unione Italaina [1998] CLC 682.
Films about Calvi's 1982 murder
The suspicious circumstances surrounding Calvi's death were made into a film, I banchieri di Dio - Il caso Calvi, in 2001. A heavily fictionalized version of Calvi appears in the film The Godfather Part III in the character of Frederick Keinszig. Perhaps prophetically, he was quoted as saying shortly before his death: "The only book you've got to read is The Godfather. That's the only one that tells how the world is really run." (1982).
Bibliography
Rupert Cornwell, God's Banker: The Life and Death of Roberto Calvi, Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1984.
David Yallop, In God's Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I, Corgi, 1987
See also
- Banco Ambrosiano scandal
- Licio Gelli, headmaster of Propaganda Due, which was involved in Gladio's strategy of tension (Gladio was the Italian branch of the NATO "stay-behind" secret paramilitary organizations, which has been involved in various terrorist acts, starting from the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing
External links
- BBC News report of murder charges
- www.geocities.com/jurisnot
- The case of God's Banker: Roberto Calvi the trial begins, The Independent, 6th Oct, 2005.de:Roberto Calvi
fr:Roberto Calvi it:Roberto Calvi nl:Roberto Calvi ja:ロベルト・カルヴィ sl:Roberto Calvi sv:Roberto Calvi tr:Roberto Calvi