The Italian banker who was found hanging from a London bridge in 1982 did not commit suicide as originally thought but was murdered by the mob, a report by Rome prosecutors has claimed.
Justice sources said the prosecutors suspected at least four people were involved in the killing of Roberto Calvi and have given them 20 days to reply to the accusations or else face formal charges.
Mr Calvi, who was nicknamed "God's Banker" because of his close links to the Vatican, was found dangling from scaffolding under Blackfriars Bridge on June 18th, 1982, with bricks in his pockets and some $15,000 on his person.
A coroner in London ruled his death was suicide, but a second coroner returned an open verdict. Rome prosecutors agreed to review the case last year after an independent inquiry concluded Mr Calvi had not killed himself.
According to the prosecutors' report, Mr Calvi was murdered by the Sicilian Mafia and mainland Italian mobsters, the Camorra, as punishment for pocketing money they had asked him to launder.
Mr Calvi was the former chairman of the Vatican-linked Banco Ambrosiano, which went bankrupt shortly before his death.
The prosecutors' investigation has focused on millions of dollars that flowed through the bank's off-shore accounts in the weeks leading up to Mr Calvi's death.
Last year's inquiry suggested he had been strangled near Blackfriars bridge and was then strung up under the span to make the death look like a suicide.
Justice sources said that among the four people suspected of orchestrating the murder were a jailed mafioso and a businessman suspected of having Mafia links.