God's banker was throttled then strung up, inquiry finds

A panel of examining magistrates inquiring into the death of the fugitive Italian banker Roberto Calvi in London has decided that he must have been murdered.

The five magistrates in Rome, sitting under the chairmanship of a German forensic science expert, Bernd Brinkman, have come up with a novel theory: that Calvi was first "immobilised", either through strangulation or by drugs or a combination of the two, then 30 to 60 minutes later he was strung up from scaffolding under Blackfriars Bridge, which finished him off. The man nicknamed "God's banker", chairman of the private Banco Ambrosiano, spun an elaborate financial web with millions of dollars belonging to the Vatican, leading Italian politicians and the Mafia before being bankrupted. He fled to London in June 1982.

On 19 June his body was found hanging from a length of orange twine tied to scaffolding under the bridge. His pockets and the fly of his trousers had been stuffed with pieces of brick. He had an expensive watch on his wrist and was carrying about $15,000.

The conclusion of the first autopsy, in London, was that he had committed suicide. Several subsequent inquiries have raised the possibility that he was murdered.

More than 20 years after the event, the new panel of investigators has conceded that there is a limit to what they can glean from Calvi's decomposed or pickled remains. None the less, they assert that the direct and circumstantial evidence they have amassed in five years' work is sufficient to bring the alleged murderers to trial. The medical experts working for the investigators write in their report: "Given the decomposed condition of the samples, homicide is difficult to demonstrate by direct means. One can only rule as to whether or not homicide is compatible with the results of the examination." They conclude that it is compatible.

Although working on the case for five years, the doctors received Calvi's remains only last year, when they were found by chance in a cupboard at Milan's Institute of Forensic Medicine. At a distance of so many years, write the investigators, "it is difficult to evaluate the dynamic which brought about Calvi's death", but several important considerations lead them to exclude suicide.

Their key conclusion is that he could not have reached the place where his body was discovered alone and unaided. To reach the scaffolding where he was found suspended, they write, "he must have been actively placed there".

The investigators also conclude that the circumstances make suicide under the bridge highly improbable. "It is difficult to imagine why Calvi, in whose hotel room there was an abundance of pharmaceutical drugs that would have been ideal for suicide, should have travelled to the Thames – not to throw himself in but to hang himself from the scaffolding. And if he had wanted to hang himself, he could have done it in the hotel."

So murder is the unavoidable conclusion. "The impressions on the segment of neck," they write, could derive from "a simple dynamic of strangulation. Death could have been, though it is impossible to verify this, a consequence of his final suspension."

The investigators' conclusions clear the way for a possible murder trial of those who are believed to have killed the banker. The hypothesis of the public prosecutor is that the killing was the work of businessmen in league with Mafiosi. Three men have already been accused of the crime: Pippo Calo, Francesco di Carlo and Flavio Carboni.

On Monday the new conclusions of the investigators will be presented at a judicial hearing. The lawyer for Mr Carboni, Renato Barzoni, said: "There are contradictions to be brought to light and we will criticise the mode of execution of the investigation."