The Vatican bank’s former head: “I thought someone had come to shoot me”

The dramatic statement of the banker whose home in Piacenza was searched at the crack of dawn

 

It was still pitch black in the building's spacious internal court yard, which resembled a Vatican cloister, when Ettore Gotti Tedeschi descended the last step of the enormous flight of stairs, suitcase in hand, and approached his car. He was supposed to leave for Milan before dawn, as usual. A fifty minute car journey, a flick through the newspapers and mass at 8. Then in the afternoon, he was meant to get the train to Rome. Among the letters he had with him, was a memorial he intended to deliver to Benedict XVI: a reconstruction of the recent events that led to his controversial dismissal from the Vatican Bank (IOR). 

But when he got to the car, there were four men waiting for him. The warrant officer slipped his hand into his pocket and extracted his police badge. It all happened so quickly that Gotti Tedeschi thought they had come to shoot him.

For a fraction of a second, God’s former banker feared the worst. Then, he was shown a search warrant and told that he would have to change his plans for the day and cancel his trip to Rome. Gotti Tedeschi, with his sallow face, took a quick look at the piece of paper. Then he called out to his wife: “Francesca!”

The Vatican bank board’s shocking no-confidence vote in Gotti Tedeschi two weeks ago, was followed by a harsh communiqué that was not in keeping with the Holy See’s style. A document that was both morally and professionally devastating. And now this new unexpected blow. A search warrant was issued but the Vatican bank’s former head was not under investigation.

The investigation being carried out by Naples prosecutors has nothing to do with the Vatican bank saga. “Fortunately I kept calm when he came in accompanied by three carabinieri (Italian military policemen), looking shocked. I had woken up at four, unable to get back to sleep. I had said the rosary. I was perfectly at peace,” Gotti Tedeschi’s refined and courteous wife told Italian newspaper La Stampa.

The Gotti Tedeschis’ home is located right in the heart of the Northern Italian city of Piacenza, in Via Verdi, just a stone’s throw away from the old heart of the city. The sitting room is an art gallery of old paintings on religious themes mostly. On one of the tables there is a photo of their five children and one of the couple attending an Audience with Pope Benedict XVI. To the right, there is a door leading to the banker’s small study.

The triangular, narrow  and monastic-like room has a dark wooden desk which is not much larger than an old school desk, with a tiny window in front of it. It is chock-a-block with newspapers, articles, magazines, conference texts and diaries. It was in this cramped room that the Catholic banker set to creating a reconstruction of his three years as President of the Vatican bank, in a memorial that he planned to take to Rome. He did this convinced that his exit was linked to the disputes over the new anti-money laundering laws and the attempts to rescue San Raffaele hospital in Milan. 

And this is where the search began. The carabinieri started rummaging through every single piece of paper in the study, looking for any correspondence between Gotti Tedeschi and Giuseppe Orsi. Throughout the search, the carabinieri remained in close telephonic contact with public prosecutor Vincenzo Piscitelli. They eventually found a letter in which the managing director of Finmeccanica (Italy’s leading manufacturer in the high technology sector) expressed his solidarity to Gotti Tedeschi after his sudden dismissal from his position in the Holy See. Gotti Tedesci and Orsi are both from Piacenza, they were both born in 1945 and they have known each other for a long time and share a mutual respect for one another.

The policemen sent by Naples prosecutors opened up Gotti Tedeschis’ briefcases containing decades’-worth of meticulously kept check-book stubs. They then opened a small safe where the family’s deeds and a couple of pieces of jewellery were kept.

By the time the sun had risen, the search had briefly moved to the family’s country home in San Paolo, a small village about ten kilometres from Piacenza. But there was no study and no documents were found so the search ended quickly. In the meantime, carabinieri were searching the banker’s Milan office, two minutes away from La Scala opera house, where the headquarters of Banco Santander are located.

The search at the family’s Via Verdi home was over by 10:30 at which point Gotti Tedeschi got into a car accompanied by investigators and headed for Milan. Here, Piscistrelli was waiting to listen to what he had to say. At 17:30 Gotti Tedeschi sent a text message to his wife, who was concerned about what was going on as the interrogation had dragged on for a while: “I asked to take a break and resume tomorrow,” the former Vatican bank head said, “The lawyer is going to accompany me home…”

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