Licio Gelli, the former head of the subversive secret P2 Masonic lodge, has died at his home in Arezzo at the age of 96. The former financier was convicted several times and his name was linked to some of the darkest episodes in Italian modern history.
As head of the P-2, which was outlawed after being discovered in 1981, Gelli was believed to have orchestrated a network of figures in the government, the intelligence services, the military, financial circles and the media in covert anti-Communist and anti-democratic activities. He was linked to cases including the Banco Ambrosiano bankruptcy, the Bologna train station bombing that took 85 lives in 1980 and the murder by the Red Brigades of former Italian premier Aldo Moro in 1978.
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