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POWER STRUGGLES AND MURDERS IN THE VATICAN STRUGGLES POWER AND MURDERS 'ATICAN THE Evidence surrounding the 1998 killing of the new commander of the Swiss Guard overturns the Vatican’s official version of events and raises disturbing questions about Opus Dei and masonic influences in the Curia and the activities of Eastern European spy networks. A Link to the Attempted Assassination of Pope John Paul II n Monday 4 May 1998, just after 9.00 pm, 43-year-old Swiss Guard Alois Estermann was found shot dead along with his wife, Gladys Meza Romero, and another Swiss Guard, 23-year-old lance corporal (or vice-corporal) Cédric Tornay. It is extremely rare that murder occurs within the walls of the Vatican. However, what makes these deaths rather poignant is that, just hours before the murders, Estermann was appointed commandant of the Swiss Guard by Pope John Paul Il. Within hours of the crimes, Tornay was identified as the man who "in a moment of madness" had killed the commandant and his wife before turning the gun on himself. The Vatican said that "the recruit" appeared to have a personal grudge against his commandant and previously had complained about a lack of recognition within the Swiss Guard. And that, it seemed, explained it all. Or did it? In the immediate aftermath of the crimes, it was reported that Estermann, almost two decades before, had shielded the pope during the 1981 assassination attempt—an incorrect news item that would continue to circulate for some time. But according to Ferdinando Imposimato, the talian prosecutor in charge of the investigation of the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, both he and Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who failed to kill the pope on 13 May 1981, are convinced of a link between he assassination attempt and the 1998 murder of Estermann. Imposimato claims that, during private conversations held between 1997 and 2000, Agca confirmed that the Russian KGB and the Bulgarian secret service had been involved in the 1981 assassination attempt on the pope. mposimato alleges a connection with the 1998 murder through a link with he East German secret police, the Stasi. Though the Vatican and many Church apologists did not want to hear it, it is a fact that Markus Wolf, the ormer number two of the Stasi, declared that in 1979 Estermann had been recruited as a Stasi agent. Whether or not Wolf told the truth is a different matter, of course, but Wolf's credibility has never been questioned—except in his instance. The question therefore is: if Estermann was still a Stasi asset by 1998, by which time communism had long collapsed and East Germany ad folded back into Germany, could this explain the 1998 murders? by Philip Coppens © 2011 PO Box 13722 North Berwick EH39 4WB United Kingdom Email: info@philipcoppens.com Website: http://www. philipcoppens.com PO Box 13722 Opus Dei versus Freemasons and Propaganda Due A year after the murders, a group of disaffected priests inside the Vatican claimed that Estermann had been the victim of a Vatican power struggle. The priests suggested that evidence in the murder investigation had been tampered with in order to fit the hypothesis that the killing of Estermann was the result of a moment of madness on the part of Tornay. The claims were published in 1999 in the book Blood Lies in the Vatican, printed by a small Milanese publisher. The Vatican still wields tremendous power in Italy... North Berwick EH39 4WB United Kingdom Email: info@philipcoppens.com Website: NEXUS ¢ 53 AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2011 www.nexusmagazine.com