A dramatic turn of events, more than 40 years after the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi , who vanished into thin air on June 22, 1983. There is a new suspect in the inquiry into the case of the young Vatican citizen.

The suspect is Laura Casagrande , a friend and former student at the same music school as the fifteen-year-old. She is charged with providing false information to the public prosecutor. Casagrande, now 57, allegedly provided contradictory versions of the events leading up to Emanuela's disappearance. The woman was questioned by investigators in Piazzale Clodio, accompanied by her lawyer.

"This is important news, and I'm happy that the prosecutor's office is investigating confidentially; it means they're doing it with complete seriousness," said Pietro Orlandi, Emanuela's brother.

The investigation, reopened in 2023, has been entrusted to the Carabinieri of the Rome Investigative Unit and coordinated by the Public Prosecutor's Office. Investigators are continuing to analyze the documents, focusing in particular on the hours preceding Emanuela's disappearance. At the same time, Vatican magistrates have also taken action, and a bicameral commission of inquiry has been established.

And it was precisely before the Parliamentary Commission a little over a year ago that Laura Casagrande appeared, along with another former student of the Tommaso Ludovico da Victoria music school and a friend of Emanuela's. From the transcripts of the time, it appears that Laura Casagrande may have been the last person to see the girl on the day of her disappearance on Corso Rinascimento, after she left the music school in Piazza Sant'Apollinare.

Her reconstruction of the day before the Commission was accompanied by a series of "I don't remember" statements . During the hearing, she then spoke about the "telephone operator" who called her home . "I immediately understood it wasn't a prank," the woman said. "The tone of his voice was somewhere between Arabic and Oriental. I can't really distinguish between the two, but it was authentic. Whether it was Turkish, Arabic, or Afghan, I don't know, but it was believable and very pressing. I couldn't keep up with the rapid dictation. I said, 'Just a minute,' the message was so long, it was so many pages. Then my parents and I handed everything over to ANSA, and we went in person, as we had been told to do."

A hearing that, Andrea De Priamo, president of the bicameral commission, stated today, "appeared very contradictory, as if the person being heard wanted to withdraw from the scene."

"Subsequent investigations still lead us to believe," he adds, "that she may have been one of the very last, if not the last, people to have seen Emanuela on Corso Rinascimento . The Presidency had already included her name among those to be interviewed again, not ruling out doing so through a witness interview rather than a free hearing."

Laura Casagrande's inclusion in the register of suspects comes just days after news of a new "investigative lead" that suggests the possible involvement of Emanuela's uncle, Mario Meneguzzi (who has been dead for some time), whose home in the Rieti area was searched in April last year.

(Unioneonline)

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