Emanuela Orlandi case, the Vatican launches new investigations

The Vatican's promoter of justice Alessandro Diddi will launch new investigations in relation to the disappearance of Emmanuela Orlandi which took place in Rome in June 1983.

According to what has been learned, the initiative is linked to a series of requests presented in the past by Pietro Orlandi, Emanuela's brother. The Vatican judiciary will first analyse the documents and records relating to the old investigations.

The proceedings of the Rome Prosecutor's Office on the disappearances of Orlandi and Mirella Gregori, the latter of which occurred on May 7, 1983, were archived in October 2015 at the request of the then chief prosecutor Giuseppe Pignatone, now president of the Vatican Tribunal, and his deputies Ilaria Calò and Simona Maisto.

“We are unaware of this, we learned it from the press but we have certainly been waiting to be heard for a year,” says the Orlandi family’s lawyer, Laura Sgrò, commenting on the news of the reopening of the Vatican investigations.

The Vatican Promoter of Justice "has opened a file" on the case of Emanuela Orlandi "also on the basis of requests made by the family in various places", sources from the Vatican press office confirmed to ANSA.

"For many years we have been asking for collaboration to reach a final solution. The fact that investigations are being opened is a very positive thing, finally perhaps there can be collaboration between the Italian state and the Vatican state given that, not long ago, a proposal was made to open a parliamentary inquiry". This is what Pietro Orlandi, Emanuela's brother, said to Rainews24.

"I hope to be summoned and to be able to write down the minutes. It's something I've been asking for a long time with the lawyer Laura Sgrò", explains Orlandi who also says he hasn't spoken to anyone from the Vatican and that he learned the news from the agencies.

“I want to tread carefully,” he says. “I am available and I hope to be heard as soon as possible because over time I would have liked to speak with them about the many elements that have emerged in recent years, found with the lawyer Sgrò.”

Orlandi adds that “there are important things like the WhatsApp messages from 2014 that I received between two people very close to Pope Francis who talk about Emanuela’s documents, about Emanuela’s things,” he explains. The girl’s brother hopes “we can reach a solution.

The truth exists, it is somewhere and many people know it”. According to Orlandi, thanks to the Netflix documentary “Vatican girl” “now even outside of Italy they know what happened in these 40 years – he underlines -. Maybe people have realized that it is a story that no one will ever be able to hide until the end. Sooner or later we will have to reach a solution. I am convinced of this”.

“There are people in the Vatican who know everything,” says Orlandi in the interview with RaiNews24. And he concludes by underlining that “there are situations that have never been deliberately explored. Perhaps for the first time the Vatican has decided to make a key point, to reach a solution.”