A Vatican banker found hanging in London in 1982 was killed by murderers who tried to mask his death as a suicide, Italian papers said today, leaking results of a new inquiry.
The inquiry into the death of Mr Robert Calvi was ordered by the Rome prosecutor's office, which refused comment today since the results have not officially been handed over to investigating magistrates, said Rome prosecutor Mr Salvatore Vecchione.
He denounced the press leaks over an affair that shook the Vatican at the time, shedding unwelcome light on the murky past of Vatican high finance in a scandal that was also mixed up with the Mafia and Italy's powerful P2 masonic lodge.
The press reports asserts that Mr Calvi, director of Banco Ambrosiano, once Italy's largest bank before it collapsed under his chairmanship after a €1 billion gap was found in its records, was killed at a worksite near Blackfriars Bridge, where his body was found hanging.
The suspicion of murder has always surrounded his death. Although a British court ruled it was a suicide, the case was reopened in Italy in 1992 after Mr Calvi's family insisted it had new evidence they said would prove he was murdered by the Mafia.
Mr Calvi's son, also named Roberto, was quoted Friday by La Repubblica newspaper as saying although he was convinced the Mafia carried out the murder, it was on behalf of a third party.
AFP