In God's Name (58 page)

Postcript to this Edition

Since initial publication in 1984, the Holy See has failed to address either the evidence contained or the issues raised within this book. Events in the world beyond the Vatican City State have, however, served as a powerful vindication of both the evidence and many of the conclusions.

Michele Sindona

Among the crimes of which I accused Sindona were the fraudulent bankruptcy of his Italian empire and the contract murder of Giorgio Ambrosoli. Three months after initial publication of this book in the United States, and although he was still serving a 25-year term of imprisonment, the US Justice Department felt compelled to return Sindona to Italy to stand trial accused of precisely those same crimes. Sindona’s first reaction upon hearing the news of his extraction is particularly significant. ‘If I finally get there, if no one does me in first –
and I’ve already heard talk of giving me a poisoned cup of coffee –
I’ll turn my trial into a circus. I’ll tell everything.’

After he had arrived in Italy, Sindona was visited in prison by other members of P2. Subsequently he had a change of mind about telling all. He requested that his trial on the various fraud charges should proceed without his being present in the courtroom. A request that was surprisingly granted. In 1985, a Milan court found Sindona guilty of fraudulent bankruptcy and sentenced him to a term of 15 years’ imprisonment. On March 18, 1986, another Milan court found Michele Sindona guilty of ordering the murder of Giorgio Ambrosoli and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Before he could
commence either of these sentences he was due to be returned to the United States to serve the remainder of the initial 25-year prison sentence.

Confronted with the realization that he would undoubtedly die in prison, the 66-year-old man made a decision. He would break his Mafia oath of
Omertá.
He would tell all. Not least, he intended to barter information concerning the circumstances surrounding the death of Albino Luciani. On Thursday, March 20, after drinking his breakfast coffee, he screamed, ‘They have poisoned me!’ Two days later, on Saturday, March 22, he was dead. The murder of Sindona was a classic example of the power of P2. Because of fears that an attempt might be made on his life, Sindona was being held in a maximum-security prison. He was subjected to constant 24-hour TV surveillance. There were never less than three guards with him and his food and drink came into the prison in sealed containers.

Paul Marcinkus

Archbishop Marcinkus was accused of direct criminal involvement with regard to the crash of Banco Ambrosiano and the disappearance of $1.3 billion. Like the murder of Albino Luciani, this is yet another crime that the Vatican insists never occurred. Since the initial publication of this book, the Vatican has repaid $250 million to the creditors of Calvi’s ruined financial empire. This money was repaid on a ‘no fault’ basis thus enabling the Vatican to continue to deny any liability.

Within this book Luigi Mennini the managing director of the Vatican Bank was yet another accused of perpetrating criminal fraud. In July 1984, one month after the first publication, Mennini was sentenced by a Milan court to seven years’ imprisonment after being convicted of fraud and other charges related to
Il Crack Sindona.
It continued to prove far more difficult to bring the President of the Vatican Bank to the bar of justice, but then Archbishop Marcinkus had very powerful protectors ranging from Pope John Paul II to senior members of the then United States Government.

In June 1984, Pope John Paul II lectured the Swiss on banking ethics: ‘The world of finance, too, is a world of human beings, our world, subject to the consciences of all of us.’ The one conscience exempted from this doctrine would appear to have been the late Pope’s. When he uttered these words his Vatican City State was continuing to offer safe refuge to a number of alleged criminals including Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, Pellegrino de Strobel and Luigi Mennini, all senior executives of the Pope’s bank.

The activities of Marcinkus continued to put that Vatican conscience under strain. When the Holy Father roundly condemned apartheid, the response of the Vatican bank was to secretly lend $172 million to various agencies of the pro-apartheid South African Government. During late December 1985, terrorist attacks at Rome and Vienna airports resulted in twenty deaths. The Pope, taking as his text the Commandment ‘thou shalt not kill’, condemned absolutely those who bore the responsibility for these deaths. President Reagan stated that his administration had ‘irrefutable proof’ indicating that Libya was responsible. On December 29, two days after the attacks, the United States Ambassador to the Vatican, William Wilson, paid a secret visit to Libya and met Muammar Qadafi. Acting on behalf of Marcinkus and the Vatican Bank, Wilson negotiated the terms of a multi-million dollar loan to enable Libya to acquire an Italian oil refinery.

For more than five years Ambassador Wilson proved a source of strength for Marcinkus. Wilson’s efforts included bringing pressure to bear on the United States Justice Department to halt investigations into the Marcinkus/Sindona relationship. He also seriously compromised US Attorney General William French Smith by arranging for Smith to meet Marcinkus in Rome, this at the very time when the Justice Department was investigating Marcinkus. In May 1986, Wilson resigned his post. Marcinkus observed, ‘I am sorry to see a man I’ve gotten to know and appreciate leave’. Pope John Paul II was also heard warmly praising the late Ambassador.

On February 25, 1987, Milan magistrates issued warrants for the arrest of Archbishop Marcinkus and his Vatican Bank colleagues Mennini and de Strobel. The warrants alleged that all three were accessories to fraudulent bankruptcy. All three continued to hide inside the Vatican, protected by Pope John Paul II.

Acting on the instructions of Pope John Paul II, the Secretariat of State, while negotiating a wide-ranging concordat with Italy in 1984, succeeded in obtaining immunity from arrest and trial for Archbishop Paul Marcinkus. This was achieved by invoking a particular clause of the original Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and the Italian State. This clause allowed for Cardinals to enter or leave Italy without let or hindrance. The original purpose of this clause was to ensure that Cardinals of the Church would be free at all times to assemble for a Conclave to elect a new Pope. No matter that Marcinkus was not a Cardinal. No matter that there was no Conclave pending. Marcinkus – despite constant pleas by Cardinal Casaroli and other Cardinals to the
Pope that the Archbishop should be immediately replaced – remained in charge of the Vatican Bank for a further six years.

When, finally, in 1989 the Pope reluctantly approved the appointment of a group of laymen to run the bank Marcinkus blithely carried on as if nothing had changed. It was only when the lay group insisted that Marcinkus must vacate the premises before they were prepared to take over that both he and the Pope accepted the inevitable. He finally left in March 1990, secretly departing for the United States and ultimately Phoenix, Arizona, where according to the Vatican he engaged ‘in unspecified work on behalf of the Diocese’. Namely saying the occasional Mass and attempting to improve his golf handicap.

Licio Gelli

In July 1984, it was established by an Italian parliamentary commission that the list of P2 members referred to within this book was authentic. Italian Budget Minister and
P2 member Pietro Longo
was forced to resign from the Italian Government. For the Puppet Master himself it appeared that the day of reckoning was near. But Gelli is a master of illusion.

From his luxurious hideaway on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil, Gelli offered to repay $8.5 million to the creditors of Banco Ambrosiano. Like the Vatican, Gelli denied any liability in billion-dollar theft. My accusation of criminal links between Italian freemasonry and the Mafia was officially confirmed in March 1986 by investigating magistrates in Palermo. In the same week the interior Minister Oscar Scalfaro told Parliament: ‘Until Licio Gelli is arrested he will continue to be a threat to Italian democracy’.

And not only Italian democracy. Evidence continued to repeatedly confirm how close Gelli’s links remained with various members of the late Argentinean junta. On instructions of P2 member Admiral Emilio Massera, five false passports were created for Gelli during his brief stay in a Swiss prison. Gelli subsequently utilized several of these passports after escaping. In May 1986, a bomb was discovered at the Cordoba headquarters of the Argentinean Third Army Corps, just prior to a visit from President Raul Alfonsin. The assassination attempt was planned by P2 members in the Army. During the last week of January 1987, P2 member General Suarez-Mason was arrested in San Francisco. Extradition proceedings began to return him to Argentina where he was wanted on several counts of torture and torture resulting in death.

Within the book I accuse Gelli’s P2 of the bombing of Bologna railway station. This atrocity, in which 85 people were murdered and 182 injured occurred in 1980. Since this book was first published, P2 member General Pietro Musumeci the former head of the internal section of SISMI, the Italian military intelligence, has been arrested and subsequently charged with perpetrating a cover-up. Fellow P2 members Francesco Pazienza and Giuseppe Belmonte and the Puppet Master himself, Licio Gelli, were also charged. After a series of trials and appeals all four were finally found guilty and sentenced to terms of imprisonment.

On April 16, 1992, in a Milan court, 33 men were found guilty of criminal fraudulent conspiracy relating to the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano. Among those to be sentenced was Umberto Ortolani, to 19 years’ imprisonment, and Licio Gelli to 18 years and six months’ imprisonment. Needless to say, none of the 33 men actually commenced serving their prison sentences; they were all granted bail pending appeals.

Having enjoyed a further six years of freedom Licio Gelli’s sentence was reduced on appeal in April 1998 to 12 years but again Gelli was disinclined to sample prison food. He negotiated with the authorities and it was agreed that instead of languishing in prison he would serve his sentence in his villa under constant police surveillance. He also surrendered his passport. For most people to hand over such a document means that they are unable to leave the country. Gelli merely took another passport out of his safe. The authorities acting under great secrecy began to prepare another attempt to apply Italian justice to Licio Gelli. Yet again his friends, including the doyen of Italian politics, Giulio Andreotti, came to his assistance. Advised that further charges against him were imminent, the Puppet Master yet again vanished. He was subsequently arrested at a residence on the French Riviera. Three days later the police searched his villa in Tuscany and discovered one hundred and fifty gold bars hidden in the flowerpots on the patio: minimum value at the time was £1.5 million. The following May after serving just a few months of his sentence he was released from prison on ‘health grounds’.

On July 19, 2005, Gelli was finally indicted for yet another crime that I had first accused him of in 1984. The murder of Roberto Calvi. Yet again the Puppet Master worked his magic. When the case came to trial the indictment against Gelli had melted away leaving five defendants.

During the first week of June 2007 the trial of Pipo Calo, Flavio
Carboni and the other three defendants finally reached a conclusion. Fittingly the verdict was inconclusive. A court in Rome decided there was insufficient evidence to show that any of the five had played a part in the death of Calvi. Yet again the Italian judiciary had demonstrated a marked reluctance to establish the truth.

P2. The immortal lodge

In February 1993, nine years after I had originally accused Bettino Craxi, the leader of the Italian Socialist Party, of receiving from Roberto Calvi and Michele Sindona some of the plundered funds of Banco Ambrosiano, Craxi, who in the interim had been for a substantial period of time Prime Minister of Italy, was forced to resign from party leadership when Italian magistrates finally decided to act upon my accusations.

Italy continued to stagger from political crisis to political crisis. Again and again the source of this turmoil can be traced to P2 elements. In early 1994 a ‘new’ personality entered the political ranks. The multi-media mogul Silvio Berlusconi ran for election on an anti-corruption platform. He was swept to power in March 1994 and became Prime Minister. Silvio Berlusconi is a member of P2. In December 1994 Berlusconi was forced to resign his office after charges of corruption were brought against him.
P2 members are resilient people;
in 2001 Berlusconi was again elected Prime Minister, a post he held until his election defeat in April 2006. Berlusconi grudgingly departed from office.