Licio Gelli

Banco Ambrosiano Trial Ordered: Masonic lodge leader Licio Gelli and 34 others were ordered to stand trial in Milan, Italy, in connection with the 1982 collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, Italy's biggest private banking failure. But Carlo De Benedetti, chairman of the Olivetti computer firm, will not stand trial on extortion charges after magistrates dismissed all charges against him. After a seven-year investigation, the magistrates ordered 34 people to stand trial on charges of complicity in fraudulent bankruptcy and one woman to be tried for aiding and abetting fraud.

Banco Ambrosiano Trial Ordered: Masonic lodge leader Licio Gelli and 34 others were ordered to stand trial in Milan, Italy, in connection with the 1982 collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, Italy's biggest private banking failure. But Carlo De Benedetti, chairman of the Olivetti computer firm, will not stand trial on extortion charges after magistrates dismissed all charges against him. After a seven-year investigation, the magistrates ordered 34 people to stand trial on charges of complicity in fraudulent bankruptcy and one woman to be tried for aiding and abetting fraud.

An appeals court Monday upheld the conviction of prominent industrialist Carlo De Benedetti in the 1982 collapse of Italy's Banco Ambrosiano but reduced his sentence to 4 1/2 years. De Benedetti, the chief executive of Olivetti, a computer-maker and information services company, had been sentenced to six years, four months in his first trial in 1992.

Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish terrorist who shot Pope John Paul II, today testified that he waited a year before cooperating with authorities because his alleged accomplices had promised to arrange "my escape from prison." Agca, 27, speaking in Italian, took the stand for a sixth day in the trial of four Turks and three Bulgarians charged with complicity in the May 13, 1981, assassination attempt against the pontiff at St. Peter's Square, which seriously wounded John Paul.

A Milan appeals court Tuesday ordered Italian industrialist Carlo De Benedetti to stand trial on a charge of fraudulent bankruptcy stemming from the 1982 crash of Banco Ambrosiano, Italy's biggest postwar bank failure. In April, 1989, lower court judges, after investigating the 1982 collapse of Italy's largest private bank, indicted 35 people but cleared De Benedetti of any wrongdoing. A prosecutor appealed that decision to the higher court. No trial date was set.

Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi recently began sending millions of dollars to the Austrian province governed by Joerg Haider, de facto fuehrer of the far-right Freedom Party. This controversial deal, which Haider described as "Christmas for Austria," was forged during a pair of mysterious trips to Libya. Accompanied by the chairman of Austria's Hypo Alpe Adria Bank, Haider held secret business meetings in Tripoli with Kadafi in May and June.