Books, in ‘1983’ by Pelizzaro the Gregori and Orlandi cases and the thread with the Martella investigation into the attack on the Pope

The decision of Pope John Paul II to go to Poland, the investigations of the investigating judges Rosario Priore and Ferdinando Imposimato, Martella’s investigation into the attack on the pontiff: the disappearances of Mirella and Emanuela are reported in the exact time in which they occurred so that they can be read without forgetting the dynamics of those years and the balance of the Cold War. “The Gregori and Orlandi cases thus emerge – we read in the presentation of the book – as the center of a strategy of pressure and manipulation constructed to influence the investigation into the attack on the Pope and alter the course of Italian justice”. According to the author, therefore, in the cases of Mirella and Emanuela there is not the shadow of a misdirection, but a precise work of interference and destabilization.

And analytical work which gives voice to deeds and documents fished out from the archives. The very first analyzes of the SISDE are interesting as they immediately, although with due caution, identified the objectives of the entire operation “either in the Catholic Church or in its highest representatives – we read in the book – in a framework of broad destabilizing scope and/or in the desire to create further imbalances in the Italian situation or which can be included in a composite and multi-purpose maneuver”.

Not only that. As Pelizzaro reconstructs in the book, land Sisde analysis right from the start they grasped precise data regarding those who claimed responsibility for the Orlandi kidnapping, hypothesizing “an organised, coordinated group with autonomous intelligence capabilities”. The reader will be able to form his own idea on the many surroundings, leads, hypotheses that have emerged over the years and also on the way in which the Orlandi affair was experienced in Oltretevere through reading the original diplomatic correspondence between the Holy See and the Italian State or the reconstruction of particular episodes, such as the moments following the return to the Vatican of Woityla, at the end of the trip to Krakowon a day marked by the reported disappearance of the Vatican town.

To reflect on the detailed historical and investigative investigation carried out in the book is in preface Martellawho was also an investigating judge on the disappearance of Mirella Gregori and Emanuela Orlandi (1985-1990): “I had the clear feeling that the progress of the investigation into the attack on the Pope had, in some way, touched on dangerous threads. The pages of this book finally explain to us which threads were touched”, writes the then investigating judge.

The disappearance of the two girls had to be “managed and therefore aimed at realizing the original plan: to create and promote false investigative leads that would distract from the Antonov case and – even more – they threw reassuring signs in Agca in prison to induce him to ‘pull the brakes’ on his collaboration with justice”, writes Martella again. Pelizzaro’s work is destined to continue with a second volume.