Licio Gelli
Licio Gelli (1919–2015) was an Italian businessman and the leader of Propaganda Due (P2). His activities became the subject of a parliamentary inquiry after the discovery of P2 records in 1981. He received final criminal convictions for his part in the Banco Ambrosiano bankruptcy and for false accusations intended to misdirect the investigation of the 1980 Bologna railway station bombing.[1][2][3]
Background and Masonic career
Born in Pistoia, Gelli volunteered on Franco's side in the Spanish Civil War. During the Second World War he served the Italian Social Republic, although the State Archives biography also records contacts with the Italian Resistance. After the war he worked in business in Pistoia, Frosinone and Arezzo.[1]
Gelli entered Freemasonry in the 1960s. The parliamentary commission's 1984 report traces his progress from the Romagnosi lodge through the Hod lodge to his appointment as organising secretary of Propaganda in 1971. It records his elevation to Maestro Venerabile (Worshipful Master) in 1975.[4]
The commission examined the support Gelli received from senior figures in the Grande Oriente d'Italia, including Giordano Gamberini and Lino Salvini. Its account presents his rise as dependent on those relationships, rather than simply the work of an outsider using a Masonic name.[4]
Exposure of P2
Records seized at Castiglion Fibocchi on 17 March 1981 included a list of P2 members. The resulting scandal led to an inquiry chaired by Tina Anselmi. The Grande Oriente d'Italia expelled Gelli in October 1981; Parliament dissolved P2 by Law No. 17 of 25 January 1982.[5][6][7]
The parliamentary inquiry and the criminal proceedings had different remits. The political-conspiracy prosecution of P2 members ended in acquittals in 1994, upheld on appeal in 1996.[8][9]
Selected criminal proceedings
Banco Ambrosiano
In April 1998 the Court of Cassation made Gelli's twelve-year sentence for the Banco Ambrosiano bankruptcy final. He subsequently disappeared from Italy, was arrested in Cannes in September and was extradited to Italy in October.[2][10][11]
Gelli was also investigated over the death of the bank's chairman, Roberto Calvi. That proceeding was closed in May 2009; it did not result in a murder conviction.[10][12]
Bologna bombing investigation
In November 1995 the Court of Cassation confirmed Gelli's ten-year sentence for calunnia (false accusation) connected with attempts to divert the investigation of the Bologna bombing. This conviction concerned interference with the investigation.[10][3]
After Gelli's death, the courts examined his role in organising and financing the bombing during the prosecution of Paolo Bellini. The judgment that made Bellini's conviction final on 1 July 2025 records the trial court's finding that Gelli was an instigator and financier of the attack. The reasons were deposited on 16 January 2026. Gelli was already dead and was not himself tried or convicted for the bombing in those proceedings.[13][3]
Gelli died at his home in Arezzo on 15 December 2015.[10]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Istituto Centrale per gli Archivi, “Gelli Licio”, Sistema informativo degli Archivi di Stato, biographical notice, revised 2019.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Senato della Repubblica, sitting 376, 12 May 1998, discussion of Gelli's disappearance and the Banco Ambrosiano sentence.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Tommaso Romanin, “La strage di Bologna, dopo 46 anni i processi sono conclusi”, ANSA, 2 August 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sulla loggia massonica P2, majority report, rapporteur Tina Anselmi, Doc. XXIII, no. 2 (1984), printed pp. 12–13 (PDF pp. 20–21). The report dates Gelli's entry to 1965; the State Archives biographical notice gives 1963. The precise year is therefore not treated here as settled.
- ↑ Archivio storico della Camera dei deputati, Indici degli atti della Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sulla loggia massonica P2 (1995), introduction, p. XXXII, and inventory, p. 116.
- ↑ Grande Oriente d'Italia, “1945–2005”, institutional history, account of the October 1981 expulsion.
- ↑ Italian Republic, Law No. 17 of 25 January 1982, Article 5.
- ↑ “La loggia di Licio Gelli assolta per sempre”, il manifesto, edition of 28 March 1996.
- ↑ “Sentenza della Cassazione chiude il caso «Loggia P2»”, l'Unità, 22 November 1996, p. 10 (PDF p. 7), reporting the subsequent rejection of the appeal against the conspiracy acquittals.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 ANSA, “Gelli al centro delle trame più oscure: da strage Bologna, al Banco Ambrosiano, al tentato golpe Borghese”, 16 December 2015, summary of judicial proceedings.
- ↑ “Gelli extradited to Italy”, The Irish Times, 17 October 1998.
- ↑ “Omicidio Calvi: archiviato procedimento contro Licio Gelli”, Corriere della Sera, 30 May 2009.
- ↑ Corte Suprema di Cassazione, Sixth Criminal Section, judgment no. 1869/2026, hearing of 1 July 2025, deposited 16 January 2026, p. 16, section 3.4, and p. 109, disposition.
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