Fresh investigations have been
launched by Rome prosecutors on the basis of documents supplied
by the Vatican into the June 22, 1983 disappearance of
15-year-old Vatican citizen Emanuela Orlandi, the prosecutors'
office said Monday.
Orlandi disappeared while returning home from a flute
lesson in Rome on 22 June 1983.
The girl's disappearance sparked an intense media frenzy in
Italy that has resulted in the case being called "Italy's most
famous unsolved mystery", and it inspired a hit Netflix dour
part documentary called Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of
Emanule Orlandi last year.
Emanuela was the fourth of five children of Ercole and Maria
Orlandi.
Her father was a Vatican employee and the family lived inside
Vatican City.
Orlandi's brother Pietro recently caused controversy by linking
the case to an alleged Church paedophile ring and reporting
rumours that late Saint Pope John Paul II used to leave the
Vatican looking for girls with Polish cardinals, a claim
rubbished by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin
who however said a Vatican probe into the Orlandi case would
nonetheless continue.
Pietro Orland's lawyer, Laura Sgrò, said in a statement to ANSA
after Monday's news of the fresh Rome probe: "Our wish is that
there will be loyal cooperation" between the Rome Public
Prosecutor's Office and the Vatican "in the search for the
truth. It is good news, it is what we have been asking for years
to have the truth about Emanuela".
Sgrò said she learned the news of the fresh impetus in the probe
from the media and that there is still no involvement of the
Orlandi family in this new phase of the investigation into the
case.
Pope Francis called Pietro Orlandi's recent suggestions about
the late Polish pope, who died in 2005 and became a saint in
2014, unfounded and offensive.
Speculation on Orlandi's disappearance, and that of another
15-year-old girl in the same summer of 1983, has been rife over
the years.
In late November 2018 Rome prosecutors said bones found in an
annex to the Vatican's nunciature to Italy did not belong to
Emanuela Orlandi or the other girl, Mirella Gregori.
The Orlandi case has spawned several theories over the
years, including that she was murdered to gain traction to have
pope John Paul II's Turkish shooter Mehmet Ali Agca freed, or
that organised crime was involved.
Ali Agca was questioned in the case.
In 2016 investigations into the case were shelved.
Six people including a priest were implicated in the
investigations on suspicion of complicity in abduction and
murder.
All but one had links with the Banda della Magliana, a
now-defunct crime gang based in Rome.
In September 2018 the Vatican described as "false and
ridiculous" reports that the Vatican had spent large amounts of
money on the case.
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