An Italian prosecutor is asking for life prison terms for the four men charged with the June 17, 1982, London murder of a prominent banker, according to a story by Stephen Brown of Reuters UK.
Roberto Calvi (left), once head of the now defunct Banco Ambrosiano, was found dead, hanging from a rope under the Blackfriars Bridge. While his death was initially ruled a suicide, additional forensic evidence surfaced indicating that the suicide was staged and Calvi had been murdered by strangulation.
Accused of the crime are Pippo Calo, an alleged Sicilian Mafioso once known as the Mafia's treasurer; alleged Rome crime boss Ernesto Diotallevi; Sardinian financier Flavio Carboni; and Calvi's bodyguard Silvano Vittor. All the defendants have denied involvement.
Calvi had connections to the Vatican administration and was sometimes called "God's banker." The Vatican Bank was found to own a piece of Banco Ambrosiano when that institution failed just before Calvi's death. At the time, it was Italy's largest bank failure. Banco Ambrosiano is believed to have helped launder money for the Mafia. Calvi is theorized to have skimmed some of the money for himself.
Facing a four-year sentence in connection with the bank collapse, Calvi traveled to London in 1982.
Calvi was also linked with the secret Masonic lodge known as P2, which might in turn have had links to a right-wing terrorist organization. Among other activities, P2 is believed to have been involved in the bombing of a Bologna railway station in 1980. The P2 organization's leader, Licio Gelli, reportedly worked with Mafia leaders on a plan for Sicilian secession from Italy in the 1990s. That movement is blamed for the killings of anti-Mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
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