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- BONN, May 8 (Reuters) - Murdered papal guard chief Alois Estermann
was a spy for the former communist East Germany's Stasi secret police,
a German newspaper reported on Friday.
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- The Berliner Kurier said Estermann, who
with his wife was shot dead on Monday night by a junior officer in the
Swiss Guard, was taken on by the Stasi in 1979 and supplied information
on the Vatican between 1981 and 1984. Quoting an unnamed source in Berlin,
it said Estermann on at least seven occasions sent highly confidential
Vatican material on a night train from Rome to Innsbruck in Austria, where
it was collected by a Stasi employee.
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- Estermann, who the paper said operated
under the codename ``Werder,'' was useful to the communist regime's secret
service because of his proximity to the Pope and because his Vatican passport
allowed him to travel easily across the world. It said Estermann had turned
to espionage to supplement the meagre salary offered by the Swiss Guard.
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- The Vatican said earlier this week 23-year-old
Swiss Guard vice-corporal Cedric Tornay shot Estermann and his wife in
a ``fit of madness'' because he had been passed over for a military decoration.
Tornay then turned his gun on himself. Tornay's family said at his funeral
on Thursday they did not think the Vatican had told the whole truth surrounding
the triple killing.
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