Authors: David Yallop
Giorgio Ambrosoli did not die in vain. His many years of work plus the unsigned deposition were to prove powerful aids for the prosecution during the forthcoming trial of Michele Sindona.
The Milanese banker and the American bishop referred to in Ambrosoli’s sworn deposition were quickly identified as Calvi and Bishop Paul Marcinkus. Marcinkus was to deny flatly receiving such a commission. Ambrosoli was most certainly not the kind of man to make such an accusation without overwhelming proof. With regard to the veracity of statements made by Bishop Marcinkus, it will be recalled that shortly after the Sindona crash he denied ever having met Sindona.
Who were the main beneficiaries of this series of appalling and inhuman crimes? The list begins to have a familiar ring: Marcinkus, Calvi, Sindona, Gelli and Ortolani.
In Milan the terror after the series of murders was most discernible in the Palace of Justice. Men who had worked alongside Ambrosoli suddenly found difficulty in remembering that they had assisted him during his investigation of Sindona’s affairs. Judge Luca Mucci, who had taken over the criminal investigation after Alessandrini’s murder, moved into the continuing investigation so slowly that spectators might have thought he had been turned to stone. An initial evaluation of the Bank of Italy’s investigation into Banco Ambrosiano astonishingly concluded that Calvi’s explanations were perfectly acceptable. This at least was the view of the Finance Police.
Padalino, the Bank of Italy official who had actually headed the 1978 probe, found himself frequently summoned to Milan where he was confronted by doubting magistrates. As the summer of 1979 wore
on, Padalino was threatened and harassed by elements of the Milan judiciary. He was warned that his report on Ambrosiano amounted to a libel. Gelli’s P2 and Sindona’s Mafia were reducing the concepts of justice to a depravity.
An example of just how powerful the Calvi/Gelli axis was can be gauged from events that occurred in Nicaragua at about the time of Emilio Alessandrini’s murder in January 1979. Calvi had opened a branch of his empire in Managua in September 1977. The bank was called Ambrosiano Group Banco Comercial. Its official function was ‘conducting international commercial transactions’. Its actual function was to move from the Nassau branch, with director Bishop Paul Marcinkus’s approval, a large amount of the evidence that would reveal the fraudulent and criminal devices used in the share pushing/acquisition of the Milan parent bank. Nicaragua removed the evidence even farther from the eyes of the Bank of Italy. As always there was a price to be paid. Gelli had smoothed the way with introductions to Nicaragua’s dictator Anastasio Somoza. After several million dollars had been dropped into the dictator’s pocket, he announced that it would be an excellent idea for Calvi to open a branch in his country. One of the side benefits for Calvi was the acquisition of a Nicaraguan diplomatic passport, something he retained to the end of his life.
Calvi and Gelli appraised the political situation in Nicaragua with its growing possibility of Sandinistan rebel rule in the not too distant future. These men, who had carried both Fascist and Partisan membership papers during the Second World War, had not changed a lifetime’s habit of being double-faced or, in banking terms, prudent. Calvi gave equally large amounts of money to the rebels – some went to buy grain, some went to buy arms.
Early in 1979 the left-wing takeover of Nicaragua became a reality. Like many left-wing takeovers before, this one promptly nationalized all foreign banks – with one exception: the Ambrosiano Group Banco Comercial continued to trade under Roberto Calvi. Even left-wing idealists, it would seem, have a price.
In New York with a large array of his Italian enemies silenced either permanently or temporarily, Michele Sindona decided towards the end of July 1979 that he would after all return to Italy. Illegally. The fact that he was on a 3 million dollar bail in New York and had to report daily to the Marshal’s office, and that he had already been sentenced to three-and-a-half years’ imprisonment in Italy and was wanted on further charges, might appear good reason not to return. Sindona’s
solution was simplicity itself. With the aid of his Mafia associates in New York and Sicily he arranged his own ‘kidnap’.
The reasons Sindona had for a secret return to his native land included his need to marshal maximum support for his forthcoming New York trial. Sindona took the view that a great many people owed him favours. He now wished to collect. To persuade his Italian friends and colleagues to repay him Sindona was prepared to play the one ace he still held. He would name the 500.
The list of 500 major Italian exporters of black currency had proved elusive to Italian authorities during the past ten years. A number of investigators apart from Giorgio Ambrosoli were continually stumbling over references to the list of 500, which allegedly includes the names of many of the most powerful men in Italy. It has become the Holy Grail of Italian finance but the list is not merely legendary. It exists. Sindona and Gelli certainly have copies of it, and Calvi had one too. Sindona believed that the threat to make the mysterious names public would be sufficient to effect his complete rehabilitation in Italian society. The prison sentence would be quashed, all other outstanding charges against him would be dropped, he would reacquire his Italian banks and the New York Court would be confronted by a man who would claim that he was the victim of wicked conspiracies, probably Communist inspired. An array of very respectable people would testify that Michele Sindona was not only a very much wronged man, but also the world’s most brilliant banker, a man who personified good, clean, healthy capitalism. All of this would be achieved by the use of a technique of which Sindona had frequently boasted to Carlo Bordoni he was a master – blackmail.
Later Sindona would claim there was another reason for his trip. He will insist to anyone who cares to listen to him today, that it was to overthrow the Italian Government in Sicily and declare the island an independent State. According to Sindona, he would then offer Sicily to the USA as the fifty-first State of the Union in exchange for all criminal charges he faced in the USA being dropped. Sindona asserts that the plan would have succeeded except for the fact that, after the Mafia had arranged a phoney kidnap, they proceeded to carry out a real one. Fantasies and delusions such as this are laughable until one remembers that good honest men like Giorgio Ambrosoli did not die laughing.
The madness of Michele Sindona is perhaps nowhere more clearly revealed than in the fine detail of this plan. Sindona asserts that the Gambino family was fully prepared to give up its heroin factories in
Sicily, a murderous industry that was bringing in profits to the Gambino, Inzerillo and Spatola families estimated by the Italian authorities at 600 million dollars minimum a year. In exchange for this public-spirited action, the Gambino family would be given control of the trade in oranges and Rosario Spatola would be allowed to build a casino in Palermo.
Sindona duly vanished from the streets of New York during the afternoon of August 2nd, 1979. He was clearly going to be extremely busy if Sicily was to be annexed and a deal with the President of the United States was to be effected before the trial, which was scheduled to begin on September 10th. Carrying a false passport in the name of Joseph Bonamico (Italian for good friend) and accompanied by Anthony Caruso, Sindona, wearing glasses, a white wig and false moustache and beard, boarded TWA flight 740 to Vienna at Kennedy Airport. The farce, complete with ransom demands to a variety of people from ‘kidnappers’ calling themselves the ‘Proletarian Committee for the Eversion [sic] of an Improved Justice’ continued until October 16th when an ‘emotionally exhausted and physically weak’ Sindona with a healing bullet wound in the thigh, telephoned one of his New York lawyers from a phone booth on the corner of 42nd Street and Tenth Avenue in Manhattan.
By any standards his trip had been less than an overwhelming success. Sicily had not become part of the Union. Many of Sindona’s former friends remained just that, former friends. The list of 500, despite all threats, had not been revealed and Sindona would in the near future face additional charges of perjury, bail-jumping and arranging a false kidnap. The main gain for Sindona appears to have been 30 billion lire. This sum was paid by Roberto Calvi after the kindly Licio Gelli had interceded yet again on Sindona’s behalf. It was paid to Sindona’s ‘kidnappers’ from a Calvi-owned bank, the Banca del Gottardo, in Switzerland. In theory the sum was paid to Mafioso Rosano Spatola, for the ‘release’ of Sindona – an Italian version of the three-card trick.
The main conspirators, apart from Sindona himself, were Anthony Caruso, Joseph Macaluso, Johnny Gambino, Rosano Spatola, Vincenzo Spatola and Joseph Miceli Crimi. The Italian authorities established that Rosario Spatola, who could normally be found wandering about the lines of cement mixers at the large construction company he owned in Palermo, had been in New York at precisely the time that Sindona had vanished. Asked the reason for his visit he replied, ‘Family business’.
Sindona’s trial on the massive array of charges arising from the collapse of the Franklin Bank finally began in early February 1980. Immediately before it started the Vatican gave clear indication that the Roman Catholic Church at least was going to stand by its former financial adviser.
Cardinal Giuseppe Caprio, Cardinal Sergio Guerri and Bishop Paul Marcinkus had agreed to a defence counsel request that they help Sindona’s case by swearing depositions on video-tape. Intrigued by what these devout men might say about Sindona, the prosecution had raised no objection to this unusual gambit. It is normal for witnesses to have their statements tested on oath, in courtroom, in front of judge and jury. For the men from the Vatican, trial judge Thomas Griesa waived this consideration and instructed Sindona’s lawyers to fly to Rome on Friday February 1st. The understanding was that the deposition would be taken the following day and the lawyers would report back to the Judge on the Monday. Their report, contained within the trial transcripts of United States of America
v.
Michele Sindona, makes extraordinary reading.
At the last minute, or more exactly four hours before the depositions were to be sworn, Secretary of State Cardinal Casaroli intervened. There would be no depositions. ‘They would create a disruptive precedent. There has been so much unfortunate publicity about these depositions. We are very unhappy about the fact that the American Government does not give diplomatic recognition to the Vatican.’
The sophisticated New York lawyers were still in a state of disbelief when they reported to Judge Griesa. At 11.00 a.m. on the Saturday morning, Cardinal Guerri’s secretary, Monsignor Blanchard, had telephoned the American Embassy to confirm that the cardinals and Marcinkus would be there at 4 p.m. A few minutes later he had called back to say Casaroli had withdrawn them from the arena. He was asked about his earlier call. The Monsignor promptly denied making any earlier call. He compounded that lie with another when he told the Embassy the ‘American judge knows all about this’.
The bemused Embassy official, unaccustomed to such a graphic display of Vatican dishonesty, set about contacting Cardinal Guerri direct. When she eventually located His Eminence, he confessed that he did not know if he was coming to swear a deposition or not. In the event he did not. Guerri, Caprio and Marcinkus all assured the American lawyers that their depositions would have been full of praise for Michele Sindona – that was not their difficulty. The problem had arisen when Cardinal Casaroli saw the appalling implications. If the
jury found Sindona guilty, then three high prelates of the Roman Catholic Church would in effect be branded as liars. Further, to allow the three to testify, even through voluntary depositions, would open a Vatican gate through which would come pouring every Italian magistrate demanding the same co-operation. That would lead to a breach of the Lateran Treaty which granted a cardinal complete immunity from arrest in Italy. The next step would be a very unwelcome light shining on Vatican Incorporated.
Casaroli had shrewdly saved the Vatican at the eleventh hour. What the American lawyers did not know was that in doing so he had actually overridden a decision taken by the Pope. John Paul II had happily agreed to the request that Marcinkus and the others should tell the world how highly they regarded Michele Sindona.
On March 27th, 1980, Michele Sindona was found guilty on 65 counts, including fraud, conspiracy, perjury, false bank statements, and misappropriation of bank funds. He was imprisoned in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, Manhattan, to await sentence.
On May 13th, two days before he was due to be sentenced, Sindona attempted to commit suicide. He slashed his wrists superficially, but more significantly consumed a quantity of digitalis. Acting on Grand Master Gelli’s advice, Sindona had carried with him everywhere for many years, a lethal dose of digitalis. Gelli had advised not only Sindona, but other top P2 members always to carry the drug. It was P2’s insurance against members being forced to reveal details of the organization.
How such a quantity of the drug had been brought into the prison remains a mystery. Sindona has apparently claimed to have it sewn into the lining of a suit for years. To smuggle digitalis into his prison would have been a far more difficult feat than to get it into the Papal Apartments in September 1978.
Initially it appeared that Sindona would die, particularly as the doctors were at a loss to know what drug he had taken, but the dose was inadequate. Having eventually established that it was digitalis, they were able to administer an antidote. Sindona made a full recovery and on June 13th, 1980 was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment and fined over 200,000 dollars. Carlo Bordoni, who had been the main prosecution witness against Sindona, received a seven-year prison sentence and a 20,000 dollar fine. Sindona was subsequently found guilty of arranging his own false kidnap and sentenced to a further two-and-a-half years. Also found guilty of conspiring with him and assisting him in bail-jumping were
Anthony Caruso and Joseph Macaluso. Both were sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.