Emanuela Orlandi

Emanuela Orlandi (born January 14, 1968), a citizen of Vatican City, mysteriously disappeared on June 22, 1983 at the age of fifteen.

Disappearance

At the beginning of a warm summer, the then 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi vanished. She was in her second year at a liceo scientifico (a scientific high school) in Rome. Although the scholastic year had concluded, she continued to take, three afternoons per week, flute lessons at the "Tommaso Ludovico Da Victoria School", connected with the "Pontificium Institutum Musicæ Sacræ" (The Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music). She was also part of the chorus of "Saint Anna’s Church", inside Vatican City, where she had lived from birth. Emanuela was a citizen of the Vatican, the fourth of Ercole and Maria Orlandi’s five children.

In order to reach the music school, Emanuela usually rode the bus. She would exit the bus after a couple of stops and then walk six or seven hundred feet. What is known for certain is that on Wednesday, June 22, 1983, she had been late to class. Later, around 7:00 p.m., she explained her lateness in a phone call to her sister, during which she said she had a job offer from a representative of the Avon Cosmetics Company to promote cosmetics on the occasion of a fashion show. Her sister suggested that she talk it over with her parents before making any decisions. Emanuela had allegedly met with the would-be representative shortly before her music lesson. At the end of the lesson, Emanuela spoke of the job offer with a girlfriend, who then left Emanuela at the bus stop, in company of another girl who has never been identified. Someone supposedly saw her get into a large, dark-colored BMW car. From that moment, Emanuela vanished.

Chronology

At 3:00 a.m. on Thursday, Orlandi’s parents called Sister Dolores, the director of the music school, in order to ask whether any of their daughter's classmates had information on Emanuela. The Police had suggested waiting, because ‘perhaps the girl was with friends’. On June 23, Emanuela was officially reported as a missing person, and on Friday the 24th and Saturday the 25th an announcement of the disappearance was published with the telephone number of the Orlandi house in the newspapers Il Tempo, Paese Sera and Il Messaggero.

At 6:00 pm on Saturday, June 25, a phone call was received from a youth who identified himself as a 16 year old named "Pierluigi". The sound of his voice and manner of speech suggested that he was much younger, however. He reported that together with his fiancée, he had met Emanuela in Piazza Navona that afternoon. The young man mentioned Emanuela’s flute, her hair, and the glasses that the girl did not like to wear, along with other details that fit the missing girl. According to "Pierluigi", Emanuela had just had a haircut and had introduced herself as "Barbarella". She went on to say that she had run away from home and that she was selling Avon products – all reliable details.

On June 28, a man who said his name was "Mario" called the family and claimed to own a bar near Ponte Vittorio, between the Vatican and the Music School. The man said that a girl named "Barbara", a new customer, had confided to him about being a fugitive from home but said that she would return home for her sister’s wedding. On June 30, Rome was plastered with 3,000 posters showing Emanuela Orlandi's photograph.

On Sunday July 3, Pope John Paul II, during the Angelus, appealed to those responsible for Emanuela Orlandi’s disappearance, making the hypothesis of kidnapping official for the first time. On July 5, the Orlandi family received the first of a number of anonymous phone calls. Emanuela was supposedly the prisoner of a terrorist group demanding the release of Mehmet Ali Ağca, the Turkish man who shot the Pope in St Peter's Square on May 13, 1981. No other information was given. In the following days, other calls were received, including one from a man identified as "The American" because of his voice’s strange and adulterated accent. He played a recording of Emanuela’s voice over the phone. A few hours later, in another phone call to the Vatican, the same man suggested an exchange between Orlandi and Alì Ağca. The anonymous interlocutor also mentioned the "Mario" and "Pierluigi" of the earlier telephone calls, defining them as "members of the organization".

On July 6, a man with a young voice and no accent informed ANSA news agency of the demand for an Orlandi-Ağca exchange, asking for the Pope’s participation within 20 days and indicating that a basket in the public square near the Parliament would contain proof that Orlandi was indeed in his hands. These were to have been photocopies of her Music School I.D., a receipt, and a note hand-written by the kidnapped girl. However, the Magistrate who was overseeing Orlandi’s case did not believe that there was a credible connection between the Orlandi abduction and the Pope's assailant. She believed that Orlandi had probably been kidnapped and killed after a sexual assault.

On July 8, a man with Middle Eastern accent phoned one of Orlandi’s classmates saying that the girl was in his hands and that they had 20 days to make the exchange with Alì Ağca. The man also asked for a direct telephone line with the then Secretary of the Vatican State, Agostino Casaroli. The line was installed on July 18. A total of 16 telephone calls were made by "The American", all from different public telephone booths. In spite of his variety of demands and the presumed evidence, the man (who may never be identified) did not provide any leads.

In mid-2000, Judge Ferdinando Imposimato, based on what he had learned about the Grey Wolves, a far-right Turkish group, declared that Orlandi, by then an adult, was living a perfectly integrated life in the Muslim community and that she had probably lived for a long time in Paris. He remains the only supporter of this idea and of the Orlandi-Ağca connection.

Sightings

Sightings of Emanuela in various places have been reported over the years, even inside Vatican City, but all have been unreliable. Ağca, who once declared that Orlandi had been kidnapped by Bulgarian Agents and the Grey Wolves of which Ağca was a member, spoke about Orlandi during a prison interview with Italy's RAI state television, telling the interviewer that the girl was alive, not in danger, and living in a cloistered convent. He denied any direct knowledge of the girl's fate, though, saying that he had made "some logical deductions". With no evidence to support these claims, the case was closed in July of 1997.

A Memento Mori?

On the morning of May 14 2001, the parish priest of the Gregory VII Church near the Vatican discovered a human skull of small dimensions and lacking a jaw in a bag with an image of Padre Pio in a confessional booth. The bag had likely been left the previous day, on May 13, the twentieth anniversary of the attack on the Pope and the eighty-fourth anniversary of the Fátima apparition of 1917. It is not clear if this was Orlandi's skull, some kind of message, or, as the priest believes, just a joke in poor taste.

In 2004, one month after giving his last interview, Orlandi’s father, Ercole, died.

In a letter published in 2006, Ağca claimed that Emanuela Orlandi and another girl, Mirella Gregori, both of whom vanished in 1983, were abducted as part of plan to secure his release from prison. He claimed that the girls were whisked away to a royal palace in Liechtenstein. Ağca was temporarily released from an Istanbul prison after serving 25 years in Italy and Turkey for the murder of Abdi İpekçi, a prominent Turkish journalist. However, he was quickly imprisoned again, the release seemingly a "mistake."

The Orlandi case is still unsolved.

Terrorist links

Ties with the Banda della Magliana

In 2005, an anonymous phone call [http://www.chilhavisto.rai.it/Clv/img/d/DePedisEnrico/OrlandiTel.wav] attested that in order to find a resolution on the Orlandi case, it was necessary to be aware of who is buried in the "Crypt of Saint Apollinare’s Church", and about the favour that "Renatino", one of the leader of the "Banda della Magliana" (Magliana Gang) made to Ugo Cardinal Poletti, at the time.

In the center of Rome, near Piazza Navona, there is "Saint Apollinare Church", with a crypt underneath its Basilica, where Popes, Cardinals and Christian martyrs are buried. Among these is the grave of "Enrico De Pedis", also known as "Renatino", one of the most powerful heads of the Magliana gang, assassinated on February 2, 1990. The Basilica is part of the same building of the "The Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music" that Orlandi attended, and where she was last seen. De Pedis’ interment at the Church is an unusual procedure for a common citizen, and even more because he was a gangster. Authorizing the interment at the time, was then Cardinal Poletti, now deceased.

In February 2006, an ex-member of the Magliana Gang recognized behind the voice of "Mario" one of the killers working for "Enrico De Pedis" ("Renatino") [http://www.rifondazione-cinecitta.org/banda-magliana3.html]

Ties with the IOR scandal and Roberto Calvi

A journalist who wrote a book on Roberto Calvi’s case where the banker was found dead under Blackfriars Bridge in London, has recently reported an interview with the banker's son who declared that the kidnapping of Orlandi was closely connected to his father’s case. According to him, it would have been an attempt to put pressure on the Vatican so that nobody would investigate facts involving the Vatican with the "Banco Ambrosiano" and the mafia [http://www.chilhavisto.rai.it/Clv/misteri/2004-2005/orlandie1.htm] .

See also

*"Banda della Magliana"
*Grey Wolves member Mehmet Ali Agca's 1981 attempt to assassinate the Pope
*Gladio
*Roberto Calvi, also known as "God's Banker", chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, the main shareholder of which was the Vatican Bank

References

* [http://www.repubblica.it/2005/c/sezioni/esteri/papa4/nuovagca/nuovagca.html L'ultima verità di Ali Ağca "Avevo dei complici in Vaticano"] (Italian)
* [http://www.weblog.ro/soj/2005-03-31.html#28411 The Latest Truth From Ali Ağca: "I had accomplices in the Vatican"] (English)
* [http://www.wuz.it/Home/RicercaLibri/SchedaLibro/tabid/57/c/XXXOIRJZARMXX/Default.aspx "Extra Omnes. L'infinita scomparsa di Emanuela Orlandi"] by Gaja Cenciarelli (Italian)
* [http://italy.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/132442.php Indimedia] (Italian)
* [http://www.habervitrini.com/haber.asp?id=204833 Haber Vitrini]
* [http://arsiv.hurriyetim.com.tr/hur/turk/00/06/17/turkiye/01tur.htm Hürriyet]

Persondata
NAME=Orlandi, Emanuela
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=missing teenager
DATE OF BIRTH=January 14, 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH=Vatican City, Italy
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=