Giorgio Ambrosoli

Giorgio Ambrosoli (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdʒordʒo ambroˈzɔːli]; 17 October 1933 – 11 July 1979) was an Italian lawyer who was gunned down while investigating the malpractice of banker Michele Sindona.

Giorgio Ambrosoli
Born(1933-10-17)17 October 1933
Milan, Kingdom of Italy
Died11 July 1979(1979-07-11) (aged 45)
Milan, Italy
OccupationLawyer

Liquidating Sindona's financial empire

Appointed by the court as liquidator of the Banca Privata Italiana, one of the Italian banks controlled by Sicilian banker Michele Sindona, which was forced into liquidation, he found evidence of criminal manipulations.[1] He provided the US Justice Department with evidence to convict Sindona for his role in the collapse of the Franklin National Bank.[2]

According to Ambrosoli, Sindona paid a US$5.6 million commission to "an American bishop and a Milanese banker". Official Italian sources confirmed that it concerned Paul Marcinkus, of the Vatican Bank, and Roberto Calvi, president of Banco Ambrosiano.[3]

Murder

On 11 July 1979, only hours after talking to US authorities, he was shot dead by three Mafia hitmen commissioned by Michele Sindona.[3][4]

Sindona feared that Ambrosoli would expose his manipulations in the Banca Privata Italiana case. Shortly before he was killed, the American Mafia hitman William Arico, a convicted bank robber, invoked the name of Giulio Andreotti – the influential Christian Democrat politician close to Sindona – in a threatening phone call taped by Ambrosoli.[5] Arico fell to his death while trying to escape from a federal prison in New York in 1984.[6][7] Andreotti later replied in an interview that Ambrosoli "was a person who, in Romanesque words, was looking for it".[8]

In 1986 Sindona was sentenced to life imprisonment for having ordered the murder.[2][6][9]

Mafia involvement in murder

According to the Mafia turncoat (pentito) Francesco Marino Mannoia, Sindona laundered the proceeds of heroin trafficking for the Bontade-Spatola-Inzerillo-Gambino network. The mafiosi were determined to get their money back and would have played an important role in Sindona's attempt to save his banks.[10]

Ambrosoli was killed shortly after he had a talk with Palermo Police chief Boris Giuliano, who discovered cheques and other documents which indicated that Sindona had been recycling the proceeds from heroin sales by the Mafia through the Vatican Bank to his Amincor Bank in Switzerland. Ten days after the killing of Ambrosoli, Giuliano was shot and killed by the Mafia on 21 July 1979.[11]

Ambrosoli was posthumously awarded with a medal for civic heroism. In 1995 a film about him was made, entitled A Middle-Class Hero, directed by Michele Placido.[4][12]

References
  1. Messina and Arico v. United States of America Archived March 25, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, United States Court of Appeals, February 7, 1984
  2. "Justifiable Homicide", by Luigi DiFonzo, New York, April 11, 1983.
  3. "Scandal at the Pope's Bank", Time, July 26, 1982.
  4. "Andreotti says Ambrosoli 'was asking for it'". ANSA. 9 September 2010. Retrieved 10 April 2016.
  5. Stille, Excellent Cadavers, pp. 39-42
  6. "'God's Banker' Guilty in Milan Murder", Los Angeles Times, March 19, 1986.
  7. McGill, Douglas C. (21 February 1984). "Inmate Killed in Escape is Linked to Sindona". The New York Times. p. 6. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
  8. ""Ambrosoli? Se l'andava cercando" - Corriere della Sera". 10 September 2010. Archived from the original on 10 September 2010. Retrieved 3 November 2020.
  9. (in Italian) Giorgio Bocca, Giorgio Ambrosoli, l'uomo che sfidò Sindona e la mafia, La Repubblica, August 26, 2005
  10. (in Italian) Anche Antonino Giuffré nell'inchiesta Calvi, La Repubblica, October 13, 2002
  11. Sterling, Octopus, p. 194
  12. Un Eroe Borghese (1995), Online Video Guide URL visited October 23, 2010

Sources
  • (in Italian) Stajano, Corrado (1995). Un eroe borghese. Il caso dell'avvocato Ambrosoli assassinato dalla mafia politica, Turin: Einaudi, ISBN 978-88-06-17763-8.
  • Sterling, Claire (1990). Octopus. How the long reach of the Sicilian Mafia controls the global narcotics trade, New York: Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0-671-73402-4
  • Stille, Alexander (1995). Excellent Cadavers. The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic, New York: Vintage ISBN 0-09-959491-9
  • (in Italian) Lucarelli, Carlo (2002). Misteri d'Italia. I casi di Blu notte. Turin: Einaudi, ISBN 978-88-06-15445-5.
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