Licio Gelli, a buccaneering Italian financier and self-professed fascist who was implicated in terrorist crimes, scandals and a secret society that, with him as its grandmaster, was accused of plotting a right-wing coup, died on Tuesday at his villa in Arezzo, Italy. He was 96.
His death was reported by the nation’s news media, and his funeral on Thursday, attended mostly by family and friends, was covered by Italian television.
Mr. Gelli never wavered in his convictions. In a 2008 television interview, he declared, “I was born under fascism, I studied with fascism, I fought for fascism, I am a fascist and I will die a fascist.”
His near-mythic ignominy evoked popular fictional conspiracy tales, like Dan Brown’s novel “The Da Vinci Code” and the movie “The Godfather Part III,” and he personified what Italians encapsulate as “dietrologia” — the reflexive, widely held suspicion that behind any official government narrative lurks a more sinister explanation. (more...)
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