Italian prosecutor says his investigation stopped terror attack on Vatican in 2010

April 24, 2015

An Italian prosecutor has claimed that his investigation prevented a terrorist attack on the Vatican in 2010.

“Our activity was indispensable to ensure that the irreparable did not happen,” Mauro Mura told an April 24 news conference in Sardinia. He said that a Pakistani man had been planning a suicide mission, “perhaps even at Vatican City,” but the plans were abandoned when the would-be terrorists realized that police had penetrated their network.

Members of the prosecutor’s investigating team admitted that they had no hard evidence of a plan to attack the Vatican. But they said that they had intercepted messages referring to the Pope (at the time, Benedict XVI) and the Vatican, along with plans for a suicide attack in a crowded place. Those messages were consistent with a possible plan to bomb a papal audience.

Father Federico Lombardi, the director of the Vatican press office, downplayed the significance of the prosecutor’s announcement. “It appears it was a 2010 hypothesis that had no sequel,” he said.

 

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Further information:

• Terrorist Cell May Have Sought to Attack the Vatican, Italian Officials Say (New York Times)