Murder of Alois Estermann

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The assassination of the commander of the Pontifical Swiss Guard Alois Estermann was one of the few murders in the Vatican and caused a stir and speculation in 1998.

Sequence of events

According to the Vatican version, on the evening of May 4, 1998, the commandant Alois Estermann, appointed ten hours earlier, and his wife Gladys were found murdered in the commandant's apartment. Next to it was the dead Vice Corporal Cédric Tornay (born July 24, 1974 in Valais , Switzerland ; † May 4, 1998 in the Vatican ), who apparently had killed himself.

According to this version, Cédric Tornay is said to have killed himself and his wife in revenge over a refused award (which is awarded by default after three years of service) by his commander-in-chief Estermann and most recently killed himself with a shot in the mouth.

Controversies about Cédric Tornay

Soon doubts arose as to the credibility of the Vatican's portrayal. It is said that four glasses were found in Estermann's apartment, but there were only three dead people in the apartment. After Tornay's death, the Vatican handed over to Cédric Tornay's mother, Muguette Baudat, the projectile with which her son allegedly took his own life. However, this was completely intact and did not show any abrasion or pressure marks.

There were suspicions that the Vatican had covered up and falsified evidence or knowingly lied. In the book Assassinati in Vaticano ("Murdered in the Vatican"), the two French lawyers Jacques Vergès (himself a controversial lawyer) and Luc Brossollet claim that the alleged murderer Tornay was himself murdered. They investigated the incident on behalf of his mother. Brossollet is of the opinion that it is a plot and that the real murderer or murderers have not yet been discovered.

Swiss experts have meanwhile refuted the Vatican version of Tornay's suicide and the course of the shot. Had Tornay died this way, the projectile would have split both cervical vertebrae , but it did not. A second autopsy revealed that Tornay's head must have been leaning back at the time of the shot. Another evidence against the sparse information provided by the Vatican is the blood found in the lungs from the fracture of the temporal bone . Tornay must have been hit hard in the head. This blow must have caused an unconsciousness. Only after this blow was he said to have shot himself, which was impossible. In addition, knocked out teeth suggest that the gun was forcibly inserted into his mouth.

According to an expert opinion, the suicide note that Cédric Tornay is said to have left is a forgery. There are some indications for this. Tornay never spoke of Le pape ("the Pope"), but always of the Holy Father. At the end of the letter there were two abnormalities: he said goodbye to his sisters and his father, but apparently forgets his fiancée and half-brothers (of whose existence, according to Brossolett, nobody in the Vatican should have known). In addition, according to Tornay's mother, the greeting at the end of the farewell letter is untypical for your son. He describes her as the “best mom in the world”, but Muguette Baudat says that in such a serious letter he would have ended with “your son”. In addition, the day after the death of her son, the Vatican court demanded Muguette Baudat's signature, which was to confirm Tornay's handwriting in the suicide note. In retrospect, however, she confirms that the letter does not have her son's handwriting. Tornay's final signature on the paper was also missing.

Vatican opinion on the incident

To date, the only response from the Vatican is an investigation report that confirms Tornay's suicide nine months after the crime. Those responsible are silent about the rest. The Vatican keeps the files on the murder under lock and key. Following the public allegations, it was acknowledged that unanswered questions would be investigated, but this has not yet happened.

What happened after the murders

Muguette Baudat set up a website for her son. She contributed to most of the information, for example the coffin should not be opened any more and the mother should not have a final farewell to her dead son. However, she fought for the opening of the coffin and an independent autopsy of the body. She concluded by saying that she knew that one day the truth would come to light, whether she was still alive by then or not, she owed it to her son.

In the Zürcher Tages-Anzeiger of November 19, 2005, the Rome-critical journalist Michael Meier came to the conclusion: "Speculations about a bloody act in the Vatican are unfounded". He relied on a report by Prof. Thomas Krompecher from the Institute for Forensic Medicine at the University of Lausanne, commissioned by Tornay's mother (Muguette Baudat). His autopsy report was never published because it contradicted the conspiracy theories of the two French lawyers Baudat. According to this autopsy, the speculations based on the angle of the bullet, the caliber of the bullet and the position of Tornay's corpse all prove to be unfounded. "With the results of the Krompecher autopsy," says Meier, "the thesis of Tornay's murder is refuted." With regard to Tornay's farewell letter, a graphological report proved years ago that the letter actually came from him.

Processing in the literature

In his novel Der Engelspapst , the author Jörg Kastner describes a murder of the fictional commander of the Swiss Guard Heinrich Rosin and his wife Juliette Rosin by the Swiss guardsman Marcel Dannegger, who subsequently dies by suicide.

literature

  • Jacques Vergès and Luc Brossollet: Assassinati in Vaticano. Kaos, 2002.
  • Discepoli di Verità: Bugie di sangue in Vaticano. Kaos, 2002.
  • I. Millenari: We are indicting. (Via col vento in Vaticano). Structure, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-74-667030-6 .
  • Hanspeter Oschwald : Vatican, God's company. Piper, 1998, ISBN 3-49-203997-9 .
  • Thomas J. Reese: Inside the Vatican. Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church. Fischer, 2000, ISBN 3-59-614752-2 .
  • Valeska von Rogues: Murder in the Vatican. Investigations against the Catholic Church . dtv, 2005, ISBN 3-423-34266-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. z. B. La Liberté , January 16, 2003, p. 12.