Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi
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Emanuela Orlandi | |
|---|---|
| Born | Emanuela Orlandi January 14, 1968 |
| Disappeared | June 22, 1983 (aged 15) Rome, Italy |
| Status | Missing for 41 years and 25 days |
| Nationality | Vatican |
| Height | 160 cm (5 ft 3 in) |
| Parent(s) | Ercole and Maria Orlandi |
Emanuela Orlandi (born January 14, 1968) was a citizen of Vatican City, who mysteriously disappeared on June 22, 1983.
Disappearance
Orlandi, then 15 years old, vanished on June 22, 1983. 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 flute lessons three times per week 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. She was a citizen of the Vatican, the fourth of Ercole and Maria Orlandi’s five children.
In order to reach the music school, Orlandi usually rode the bus. She would exit the bus after a couple of stops and then walk six or seven hundred feet (180 to 210 meters). What is known for certain is that on Wednesday, June 22, 1983, she had been late to class. Later, around 19:00, 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 03:00 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 18:00 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 Saint 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 an American 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.
Orlandi-Ağca Connection
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 1997.
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.
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." Ağca was permanently released from a Turkish prison in January 2010.
On 9 November 2010 Mehmet Ali Ağca was interviewed by the state television in Turkey-TRT " , Kozmik Oda Program- first time after his release in January 2010. In that interview as well as declaring that the Vatican organized the assassination attempt he also said that Orlandi was kept as a prisoner by the Vatican (for Ağca) and is now living in a Central European country as a nun in a Catholic Monastery. He added that Orlandi's family was seeing their daughter whenever they like but she was not allowed to leave that monastery. (Reference, TRT 2, and Milliyet)
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 20th anniversary of the attack on the Pope and the 84th 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.
Sightings of Emanuela in various places have been reported over the years, even inside Vatican City, but all have been unreliable. The Orlandi case is still unsolved.
See also
- Banda della Magliana
- Grey Wolves member Mehmet Ali Ağca'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
- L'ultima verità di Ali Ağca Avevo dei complici in Vaticano (Italian)
- The Latest Truth From Ali Ağca: I had accomplices in the Vatican (English)
- Extra Omnes. L'infinita scomparsa di Emanuela Orlandi by Gaja Cenciarelli (Italian)
- Indimedia (Italian)
- Haber Vitrini
- Hürriyet