The trial of five people charged with involvement in the death of Roberto Calvi, the Vatican banker found hanging under a London bridge, finally got underway Thursday more than two decades after the event but was quickly adjourned over a technicality.
Judge Mario D'Andria, presiding over a hearing in Rome's high-security Rebibbia prison, granted an adjournment until November 23 after lawyers for one of the accused, Silvano Vittor, said they had not had enough time to prepare their client's defence.
Vittor - committed for trial only last week - and four others are accused of involvement in the murder of Calvi, nicknamed "God's banker" because he headed Banco Ambrosiano, whose major stockholder was the Institute for Religious Works, the Vatican bank.
The circumstances surrounding the 62-year-old banker's death have been the subject of intense speculation over Vatican links with the Mafia for the past two decades.
He was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge in London after Banco Ambrosiano's collapse left the Vatican with heavy losses. Bricks and stones had been stuffed down his trousers and in his pockets. One of the accused, businessman Flavio Carboni, told journalists at the end of the hearing that he had played no part in Calvi's death, which he maintained was suicide. "I wanted Roberto Calvi to live and his death was of no benefit to me," he said.
Prosecutors maintain that Carboni and Vittor, who acted as Calvi's driver and bodyguard during his last trip to London, were the last people to see the banker alive.
"It will be up to the trial to establish, finally, what happened. At the time, all the psychological conditions were there why Calvi would commit suicide," said Carboni.
"There's no proof against me, and no proof of a link between Calvi and the Mafia," he added.
A London coroner initially ruled that he had commited suicide after fleeing to London to avoid prison for fraud. A later inquest reached an open verdict. Prosecutors who reopened the case in 2002 have ruled out suicide and say former Sicilian Mafia financier Pippo Calo ordered Calvi's murder as punishment for his mishandling of the Cosa Nostra's money deposited in Banco Ambrosiano.
The Mafia allegedly also wanted to avoid Calvi revealing details about their money-laundering operations. Calo, who has been in prison since 1985, and businessman Ernesto Diotallevi were among the accused in court on Thursday.
"The experts have voiced a lot of opinions over the past 23 years, but nobody has come up with irrefutable proof that the banker was murdered," said Ersilia Barracca, lawyer for another of the accused, Manuela Kleinszig, Carboni's then girlfriend.
"I will be asking for access to medical documents relating to the suicide attempt by Calvi when he was in Lodi prison after the Banco Ambrosiano bankruptcy. This was around a year before his death."
Despite the adjournment, prosecutor Luca Tescaroli said he welcomed the fact that the trial had at least begun. "The important thing is that we have come to the trial stage."