A 26-year-old member of the Vatican's crack police force died of a gunshot wound to the head on Monday in what appeared to be a case of suicide.
Alessandro Benedetti was found in a critical condition in the bathroom of the Vatican 'gendarmes' barracks in the Vatican early on Monday, the Vatican said in a statement. He died 90 minutes later in hospital.
"The first indications are that the young man wanted to kill himself," Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said, adding that a note had been found nearby.
The Vatican gendarmes are a 150-strong unit of highly trained policemen, who often come from anti-terrorist units in the Italian police. Their job is to look after the security of the Vatican as a whole, whereas the Swiss Guard - whose members wear colourful costumes - is the Pope's personal protection force.
The gendarmes, who have blue and red uniforms and are armed, are also responsible for the pope's safety when he leaves the Vatican.
Benedetti's death aroused memories of the tragedy in the Vatican in 1998, when a corporal in the Swiss Guard killed the Swiss Guard commander and his wife before turning his gun on himself.
The Vatican said in a subsequent report that the corporal had acted "in a fit of madness" after being passed over for promotion.
In Monday's incident the young gendarme appeared to have taken his own life for sentimental reasons.
An aunt of the dead man, who came from the town of Foligno in Umbria, told ANSA his girlfriend had recently left him.
In tears as she entered the family home in Foligno, the aunt described Benedetti as "so handsome and so good".
Benedetti was hired last April as a trainee gendarme and underwent the usual psychological tests. "Until now his behaviour gave no cause for alarm," Father Lombardi said.
The content of the apparent suicide note was not immediately revealed. It was reportedly being examined by the Vatican magistrates, who are investigating the incident.
Pope Benedict learned of the events of the morning with "grief" and expressed solidarity with the family of the young man, Vatican officials said.
In the 1998 tragedy Corporal Cedric Tornay killed the Swiss Guard commander, Alois Estermann, and his wife Gladys, who was Venezuelan. Tornay's family have contested the official version of the deaths, there was speculation that the shooting was the result of a Vatican political intrigue or a "love triangle". The Vatican denies this.
