Vatican City - In the first violent killings in the Vatican in living memory, the newly appointed commandant of the papal Swiss Guard, his wife and a younger Swiss Guard were found shot dead, the Vatican said early this morning.
The commandant was the guard who in May 1981 jumped on a moving "popemobile" in St Peter's Square seconds after a man shot the Pope.
The chief Vatican spokesman Mr Josquin Navarro-Valls, said there was preliminary evidence to suggest the younger Swiss Guard had killed the new commandant and his wife in a "moment of madness" before turning a gun on himself. The dead were Captain Commandant Alois Estermann (43), his wife Gladys Meza, a Venezuelan, and vice-corporal Cedric Tornay (23).
Estermann had been appointed the new commandant of the 100-member Swiss Guard, the world's smallest and perhaps most colourful army, less than 10 hours earlier by Pope John Paul. Mr Navarro-Valls said Tornay's gun was found under his body in the Estermann's apartment in the Vatican.