The many secrets of ‘God’s Banker’
by Chris­t­ian Fraser
BBC NEWS

After 25 years, two inquests and a very lengthy trial — the mys­tery remains.

The ver­dict of the court was that Roberto Calvi was mur­dered — but the evi­dence against the five accused, said the judge, was insuf­fi­cient and at times contradictory.

Despite the var­i­ous motives put for­ward it seems the jury was not con­vinced with what, in the end, was a very com­pli­cated plot.

The pro­ceed­ings in court lasted less than five min­utes. Among the defen­dants, there was of course quiet celebration.

But this will come as a huge dis­ap­point­ment to the Calvi fam­ily, par­tic­u­larly his son Carlo, who had cam­paigned for the case to be re-opened.

As chair­man of Banco Ambrosiano, Roberto Calvi was involved in some very sen­si­tive finan­cial transactions.

‘Mafia money’

In his time he had worked for the Vat­i­can bank, the Mafia, and the Freema­sons. But in June 1982 when his bank col­lapsed — with debts of $1.5bn (£750m) — he sud­denly found him­self with very pow­er­ful enemies.

One of the key defen­dants in this case was Giuseppe Calo, a con­victed mob­ster who in the 1980s had been the chief cashier of the Sicil­ian Mafia, the Cosa Nostra.

If I had wanted him dead do you not think I would have picked my own peo­ple to do the job?
Giuseppe Calo

The pros­e­cu­tion argued that Calo had ordered the killing, angry that Calvi had lost the Mafia’s money and wor­ried he might reveal all the secrets.

But defence lawyer Renato Bor­zone, who defended another of the accused, Flavio Car­boni, said there was no evi­dence to sug­gest the Mafia were ever involved.

“I still main­tain it was sui­cide,” he said. “But if it was mur­der, there was never any evi­dence to sus­pect my client’s involve­ment — or indeed that of the Mafia.”

For a large part of the two years this case has run for, it has played out in front of an empty courtroom.

The truth is, here in Italy, the death of “God’s banker” is no longer the sen­sa­tion it once was.

For a lot of peo­ple this trial was an uncom­fort­able reminder of a dark and vio­lent period many would pre­fer to forget.

The pros­e­cu­tion said that together with the other four other defen­dants — three busi­ness­man and a woman — Calo had lured Calvi to Lon­don into the hands of the Mafia.

Calo, who gave evi­dence from his high secu­rity prison, denied this charge on Tues­day in his final submissions.

“I had no inter­est in killing Calvi,” he said.

“I didn’t have the time, nor the incli­na­tion. Besides, if I had wanted him dead do you not think I would have picked my own peo­ple to do the job?”

In fact, Calo’s defence argued there were oth­ers who had wanted Calvi silenced.

Catholic his­tory

Philip Willan, author of a book on the trial, The Last Sup­per, says the sus­pi­cions still fall on some within the Vatican.

“The church does not come out of this well,” he said. “And it’s lucky for them that peo­ple lost inter­est in this trial a long time ago.

“The defence lawyer for Giuseppe Calo argued that evi­dence from the Calvi fam­ily sug­gested the banker was fright­ened of the Vat­i­can, was in con­flict with the Vat­i­can, and was almost cer­tainly try­ing to black­mail peo­ple in the Vat­i­can,” Mr Willan says.

“The lawyer for Calo said the Vat­i­can had an entirely plau­si­ble motive for killing him.”

Banco Ambrosiano had a Catholic history.

In fact it was sug­gested by the defence, dur­ing this trial, that through off­shore accounts Mr Calvi had been send­ing money to Poland to help fund the pro-democracy Sol­i­dar­ity move­ment — a cause sup­ported by Pope John Paul II.

But Mr Calvi was also work­ing for the mafia and a rather shad­owy group of Freema­sons, called P2, which had existed here in Italy as a coun­ter­bal­ance to the many com­mu­nist inter­ests which prevailed.

In short Mr Calvi was involved with some very sen­si­tive operations.

One thing we know is that he had many secrets.

Philip Willan says: “This was a man who was sup­posed to keep his silence. And with an inves­ti­ga­tion pend­ing — he was threat­en­ing not too. There were plenty who wanted him dead.”