Senate approves creation of Emanuela Orlandi and Mirella Gregori commission of inquiry
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The Italian Senate gave final approval to a bill setting up a joint parliamentary commission of inquiry into the disappearance of Vatican teenagers Emanuela Orlandi and Mirella Gregori in 1983. The vote was made by a show of hands. “I am happy, I was waiting for this news with confidence,” Pietro Orlandi, brother of the then 15-year-old who disappeared while returning home from a flute lesson in Rome on 22 June 1983, told ANSA after the vote. “This commission will be able to do so much, more than the Vatican enquiry can do,” he continued. “I am convinced that we will get to the truth, it cannot be hidden forever. I thank the senators who voted for the Commission,” said Orlandi. Emanuela was the fourth of five children of Ercole and Maria Orlandi. Her father was a worker at the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), the Vatican Bank), according to some reports, or an employee of the papal household, according to others. The family lived inside Vatican City, and the children had the free run of the Vatican gardens, according to Pietro. The girl’s disappearance sparked an intense media frenzy in Italy that has resulted in the case being called “Italy’s most famous unsolved mystery”. Sightings of Orlandi in various places have been reported over the years, including inside Vatican City, but all have been unreliable. Gregori was also 15 when she went missing in the same year, a month before Orlandi. The Vatican is conducting its own inquiry into the disappearance and Rome prosecutors also opened a new probe earlier this year.
