6/4/97

NAPLES, Italy (Reuter) A former CIA agent and 64 other people, including
financiers from across Europe, will stand trial as part of an investigation
into an international crime ring, Italian state prosecutors said Wednesday.

Alfredo Ormanni, chief prosecutor of the southern town of Torre Annunziata,
near Naples, said former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officer Roger
d'Onofrio and the others would face charges of money laudering, false
accounting and producing fake government bonds, which were distributed
throughout Europe.

The date for the first hearing was not immediately known.

The twoyearold investigations, dubbed the ``checktocheck'' probe, caused
a storm in 1995 when Ormanni asked to question Barcelona's Roman Catholic
archibishop Ricardo Maria Carles over allegations he helped launder $65
million through the Vatican Bank.

Spanish authorities said later they had found no proof that Carles had been
involved in the crime ring.

D'Onofrio, a 73yearold retired CIA agent with dual U.S.Italian
citizenship, was arrested a month later on suspicion of using CIA contacts to
help the crime ring launder money and traffick in arms, drugs and radioactive
materials.

He was later granted house arrest on account of his age.

Russian ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a candidate for the 1996
presidential elections, was also investigated in connection with the ring,
but neither he nor Bishop Carles were among those named by prosecutors
Wednesday to stand trial.

Prosecutors said other defendants included accountants, bankers and public
officials from a number of countries who are suspected of helping to maintain
the network across Europe.