ROME -- The commission investigating the secret 'P-2' Masonic lodge and its ties to the late Roberto Calvi left for the United States Sunday to question the former Banco Ambrosiano president's widow and jailed financier Michele Sindona.
The nine-member parliamentary commission, led by Rep. Tina Anselmi, will travel to New York, Washington and Otisville, the town in upstate New York where Sindona is serving a 25-year sentence for the 1974 collapse of the Franklin National Bank.
The discovery of the 'P-2' lodge in 1981 forced the resignation of the government of Italian Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani. Investigators said the lodge, of which both Sindona and Calvi were allegedly members, was a 'state within the state' because of the financial and political power of its elite members.
Calvi, the former president of the Ambrosiano, was found hanged under a London bridge last June 18. British police have concluded Calvi killed himself but the Calvi family and Italian police have maintained he was killed.
The Ambrosiano was declared bankrupt last August and is now under several Italian investigations because of loans left unpaid when it failed. It was the largest collapse of a private Italian bank since Sindona's Italian banking empire crumbled in 1974.
Last July, Sindona and Luigi Mennini, the highest ranking lay official of the Vatican bank, and 24 other bankers were ordered to stand trial for the collapse of Sindona's Banca Privata Italiana.
The Vatican bank, known officially as the Institute for Religious Works, owned 1.58 percent of the failed Ambrosiano and Italian finance officials have alleged the bank is responsible for some of loans left by the Ambrosiano.
The delegation wants to question Calvi's widow Clara, who lives in Washington, because of several statements she made to Italian newspapers after her husband's death.
The delegation also plans to question Calvi's two children as well as Carlo Binetti and Francesco Pazienza, two Italian businessmen who had dealings with Calvi.
