VATICAN CITY – With the car he took a run and forced the checkpoints, he did not stop even after a gendarme shot at the fender, then he traveled at high speed through a maze of squares and courtyards inside the Vatican. A forty-year-old man with mental problems wreaked havoc last night in the heart of the Papal State, so much so that the first measure of the security services was to block all access to the Pope’s residence, Casa Santa Marta, on the other side of the Vatican. His race ended in the courtyard of San Damaso, in the heart of the Papal State, where every morning Pope Francis goes to the apostolic palace for audiences. From the first reconstructions, it seems that the motive for the terrorist act can be excluded. However, the arrested person spent the night in a cell of the gendarmerie.
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In a short time he will be interrogated by the Vatican prosecutor, Alessandro Didi. Already from the first elements questions emerge about the profile of the man, who would be Italian and could know the environments where he moved with remarkable agility.
Based on what was reconstructed by the Vatican gendarmerie, and communicated in the evening by the press office of the Holy See, the man showed up driving a car “just after 8 pm” at the Sant’Anna gate, one of the entrances to the Papal State , constantly monitored even after the door is closed for the night. Every day thousands of tourists and pilgrims pass in front of it on their way to St. Peter’s, from there hundreds of people enter every morning to go to the Vatican pharmacy. “Regardless of the indications of the Swiss Guard”, who invited him to turn around, the man “temporarily left the entrance and, after having maneuvered, he returned at high speed, forcing the two checkpoints” of the Swiss Guards , before, and the gendarmerie, a few tens of meters later.
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In an attempt to stop the car, the Gendarmerie inspector, on guard at the gate, “exploded a pistol shot in the direction of the front tires of the vehicle”, hitting the car on the front left wing. A blow that did not stop the car which “continued on its way”.
The man walked a straight road that led him to the large courtyard of the Belvedere, used by Vatican employees as a parking lot but usually clear at that hour, and then, showing considerable skill, if not even a certain familiarity with the places, he went up a porticoed slope on the left and turned wedging itself into a maze of courtyards – Sentinella courtyard, Borgia courtyard, Pappagalli courtyard – to then arrive at the San Damaso courtyard, overlooked by the Apostolic Palace, the beating heart of the Roman Curia: here the Pope goes to the audiences every morning, where the Secretariat of State works. At that hour the offices are almost deserted, but during the day there is a coming and going of monsignors and employees of the various tasks of the central bureaucracy of the Holy See.
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The fear was that the man could reach the Pope’s home, Casa Santa Marta, which is located on the other side of the Papal States. For this reason, the security men quickly radioed the “alarm code”, explained the Vatican, and the guards closed the Mint Gate, “which allows access to the rear of St. Peter’s Basilica, to the Vatican gardens and Piazza Santa Marta”.
A lot of fear, but the epilogue was quick: having reached the courtyard of San Damaso “the driver got out by himself and was blocked and placed under arrest by the Gendarmerie Corps”, reported the Vatican press office. The man, “about 40 years old, was immediately subjected to a visit by the doctors of the Directorate of Health and Hygiene of the Vatican City State, who found a serious state of psychophysical alteration”. Arrested, he was taken to a prison cell in the new premises of the Gendarmerie barracks, “at the disposal of the judicial authorities”. To which he will have to explain the reason for his crazy gesture which made the Vatican experience a few minutes of very high tension.