Nearly 40 years after the disappearance of a Vatican official’s daughter, the Vatican is launching a new investigation. Vatican prosecutor Alessandro Diddi is also complying with a request from the girl’s family, a spokesman said on Tuesday. On June 22, 1983, 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi had not returned from music lessons in Rome. The case is considered one of the greatest mysteries in recent Italian criminal history.
The Vatican initially gave no information on which basis the new investigations were started. According to their lawyer, the Orlandi family was initially unaware of the details. “We don’t know what the Vatican is going to do,” said lawyer Laura Sgro. So she has not yet found out whether the Vatican wants to review the old investigation files of the Roman prosecutor’s office or whether it is following its own tracks.
Probably related to attack on pope
New speculation arose about Orlandi’s disappearance, with the Vatican also playing a role. According to a popular theory, the girl was kidnapped by a gang who wanted to blackmail the then head of the Vatican Bank. According to another unproven theory, Emanuela was kidnapped to free Mehmet Ali Agca (65), who had assassinated Pope John Paul II (1920-2005) in 1981.
In 2019, the Vatican opened two bone cellars in search of the remains of the disappeared. According to the researchers, only old bones have been found in it. Other tracks that followed did not lead to results either. Last year, the Netflix documentary series “Vatican Girl” covered the mystery case. (AFP/jmh)