After a nine-month inquiry, the Vatican yesterday said that the case
of a Swiss Guard who killed his commanding officer and then shot
himself was closed, and suggested for the first time that the murderer
had been under the influence of cannabis.

A summary of the judicial findings confirmed the Vatican's assertion,
immediately after the tragedy last May, that Vice-Corporal Cedric
Tornay, 23, killed Colonel Alois Estermann, 44, the newly appointed
head of the Pope's protection force, and his wife Gladys, 49, in a
"fit of madness".

It said that Vice-Corporal Tornay was mentally unstable, had felt
persecuted by Colonel Estermann, and resented being passed over for a
military honour.

Muguette Baudat-Tornay, Vice-Corporal Tornay's mother, contested the
Vatican's conclusions, insisting that her son had been "framed" as
part of a Vatican plot to eliminate the new commander.

Nicola Picardi, the Vatican lawyer who led the inquiry,said traces of
cannabis were found in Vice-Corporal Tornay's body after the murder.