Rome prosecutors investigating the disappearance of a teen 40 years in the past are wanting afresh on the potential involvement of her uncle following info equipped by the Vatican, Italian media reported Tuesday — a transfer family members rejected as a diversionary tactic.
Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican worker, was final seen leaving a music class in Rome on June 22, 1983.
A long time of hypothesis adopted over what occurred to her, with ideas that mobsters, the key companies or a Vatican conspiracy had been responsible, theories which sparked a success Netflix sequence.
The Vatican has been accused of obstructing investigation efforts over the a long time, however ultimately launched an inquiry into its most well-known chilly case in January. Rome prosecutors in Could then opened their very own contemporary probe — the third to this point.
The Vatican not too long ago handed its case recordsdata to Rome, saying they included “some traces of inquiry worthy of additional investigation”.
These embody a letter through which a priest informed the Vatican’s then secretary of state that Orlandi’s older sister Natalina had revealed throughout confession that her uncle, Mario Meneguzzi, had sexually abused her, Italian tv channel La 7 mentioned Monday.
Orlandi’s brother Pietro, who has for years campaigned for the reality and believes the Vatican is aware of what occurred to Emanuela, reacted angrily to the La 7 report.
“They can not put all of it on the household. I’m livid,” he informed the information company AdnKronos, saying the Vatican had “crossed the road” by implicating his uncle.
Natalina informed a press convention on Tuesday that whereas her uncle had “made advances” in direction of her, he stopped after being rejected. “There was no rape,” she mentioned.
Orlandi mentioned his uncle’s alibi — that he was on vacation removed from Rome on the time — had been established and verified.
“The Vatican is looking for to disclaim any type of accountability,” he mentioned, renewing his name for a parliamentary fee to be arrange.
– Identikit –
Rome prosecutors are actually reportedly wanting once more at Meneguzzi, who was solely superficially investigated through the authentic probe.
Meneguzzi, who died a number of years in the past, regarded remarkably much like an identikit drawing of a person noticed speaking to Emanuela on the street after her music lesson, La 7 mentioned.
He additionally performed a key position within the months following her disappearance, answering the calls of the purported kidnappers, the report mentioned.
Meneguzzi had ties to the key service, and managed to get it to pay for a household lawyer, La 7 added.
Through the first, temporary investigation into him, he was additionally warned by the service that he was being tailed by police, it mentioned.
Meneguzzi informed investigators on the time that he was out of Rome on the day {the teenager} disappeared, within the village of Torano east of the capital, together with a number of family members together with Emanuela’s father Ercole, in line with the Open on-line newspaper.
However Ercole Orlandi informed investigators on a number of events that he was not in Torano that day, however in Fiumicino, west of Rome, Open mentioned.
The Corriere della Sera’s investigative reporter Fabrizio Peronaci mentioned Tuesday he had additionally uncovered info that the abductors had insisted from the beginning that Meneguzzi be their level particular person for the ransom negotiations.
The twists and turns of the case had been documented in a 2022 TV sequence by Netflix, “Vatican Woman”, although it didn’t take a look at Meneguzzi.
Within the documentary, a buddy claimed the teenager confided the week earlier than she disappeared to having been harassed within the Vatican gardens by a determine near then pope John Paul II.
One other declare typically repeated in Italian media was that she was taken to drive the discharge from jail of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981.
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Initially printed as Uncle investigated in lacking Vatican teen case: report
