ITALY
GlobalPost
Agence France-Presse on Dec 16, 2015
Shadowy masonic figure implicated in Italy’s darkest days dead at 96
Licio Gelli, a masonic grand master implicated in some of the darkest chapters of Italy’s post-war history and one of the worst scandals to rock the Vatican, has died at the age of 96.
Gelli, a fascist sympathiser who was the founder and leader of of the notorious P2 masonic lodge, passed away on Tuesday evening at his villa in Arezzo, Tuscany, his family said, according to local media.
P2, or Propaganda Due, was an influential secret network that counted politicians, judges, bankers and senior military figures amongst its members.
Its tentacles stretched throughout the upper echelons of the Italian establishment, although an attempt to have its members jailed for political conspiracy and attempting to destabilise the state finally failed in 1994.
It is best known internationally for having been at the heart of a murder mystery involving both the mafia and the Vatican which centered the body of “God’s banker” Roberto Calvi being found hanging beneath London’s Blackfriars bridge in 1982.
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