Edoardo Agnelli

For his great-great grandfather, see Edoardo Agnelli (entrepreneur, born 1831). For his grandfather, see Edoardo Agnelli (entrepreneur, born 1892).

Edoardo Agnelli (9 June 1954 – 15 November 2000) was the eldest child and only son of Gianni Agnelli, the industrialist patriarch of Fiat and of Marella Agnelli (born Donna Marella Caracciolo di Castagneto).^[1] He converted to Islam when he was living in New York City,^[2] and changed his name to "Mahdi".^[2][3] In mid-November 2000, he was found dead under a bridge on the outskirts of Turin.^[1]

Edoardo Agnelli
Edoardo Agnelli during prayer in Tehran
Born	(1954-06-09)9 June 1954 New York City, U.S.
Died	15 November 2000(2000-11-15) (aged 46) Turin, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Alma mater	Atlantic College, Princeton University
Occupation	Businessman
Parents	Gianni Agnelli (father) Marella Agnelli (mother)

Biography

Agnelli was born in New York City to Italian parents (his maternal grandmother was American). His mother, Marella Agnelli, and his father, Gianni Agnelli, married in 1953.^[4] Edoardo Agnelli had one sister, Margherita Agnelli de Pahlen.^[1] He had studied at Atlantic College, and he read modern literature and oriental philosophy at Princeton University.^[5]

After leaving Princeton, he traveled in India, pursuing his interest in oriental religion and mysticism,^[5] and Iran. According to La Repubblica, Agnelli's preoccupations became increasingly erratic, lecturing about mysticism, Franciscanism, and Buddhism, praising of the poor, and criticism of the behavior of Fiat.^[6] He was against materialism which made him move in a different direction than his parents, according to The Guardian.^[7]

As an adult, Agnelli claimed to be the heir apparent to the Fiat empire, but his father, who had already been unhappy with Edoardo's conversion to Islam, ensured that he would not inherit it. The only official position which the younger Agnelli held in the family businesses was as a director of Juventus F.C.,^[8] in which capacity he was present at the Heysel disaster.^[9] In 1990, he was accused for heroin possession^[10] but the charges were later dropped.^[11]

Converting to Islam

 

Edoardo Agnelli (right) participates in a Jumu'ah of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a Teheran, 3 April 1981

Edoardo Agnelli converted to Sunni Islam in an Islamic center in New York where he was named "Hisham Aziz".^[2] Then he met Ayatollah Khomenei in Iran and was reported to have converted to Shia Islam.^[12] According to Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri Abyaneh, Agnelli recited his shahada in-front of Fakhroddein Hejazi and became a Shia Muslim and changed his name to Mahdi.^[2] He said, "One day while I was in New York, I was walking in a library and Quran caught my glimpse. I was curious about what was in it. I started reading it in English and I felt that those words were holy words and cannot be the words of men. I was really touched and borrowed the book and studied it further and I felt like I was understanding it and I believed it."^[13]

Death

On 15 November 2000, 46-year-old Agnelli's body was found near Turin, on a river bed beneath a motorway viaduct on which his car was found.^[5] The viaduct is known as the bridge of suicides.^[14] According to a report by Marco Ellena, the doctor from the public health office of nearby city Cuneo, who examined Agnelli's body, "He died because of deadly wounds after having fallen 80 meters".^[15] The report also stated that he was alive when his body impacted with the ground.^[15] His head, face and chest were damaged due to the fall and an autopsy detected some internal injuries which seemed to prove the suicide theory.^[15] Nothing was unusual in his death scene and police did not find anything in his car apart from phones, cigarettes, a walking stick, an address book and a bottle of water.^[15] His conversion to Islam and the fast process of his funeral thereafter, started some rumors about his suicide.^[15] Finally, Riccardo Bausone, the public prosecutor who was working on Edoardo's case, closed the death case and concluded that Agnelli's death was a suicide case.^[15][16]

Giuseppe Puppo, an Italian journalist and writer, published a book about Agnelli's death in 2009, using interviews and unpublished testimonies. Puppo regards some of the points as inconsistencies and oddities: the absence of the bodyguards of Edoardo Agnelli; the interval of two hours between leaving home and arriving on the Fossano viaduct; the cameras of Edoardo Agnelli, whose images have never been released; the telephone traffic on the two phones; the total absence of witnesses along a road section which recorded at least eight cars per minute at that time; the lack of fingerprints on the car; the hurried burial without a proper autopsy.^[17][15]

Edoardo was buried next to his cousin Giovannino in his family vault, in the cemetery perched above the grounds of the Agnelli family villa.^[15]

See also

• Gianni Agnelli
• Marella Agnelli

References

1. Whittaker, Malcolm. "Fiat magnate Agnelli's only son found dead at Bridge of Suicides". The Independent. Retrieved 10 December 2015.
2. Staf writers (2012). "Who was edoardo and how he converted to Islam". Mashreghnews. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
3. "The curse of inheritance: Do wealthy dynasties always make for happy heirs?". The Belfast Telegraph. 19 July 2007. Archived from the original on 9 October 2007. Retrieved 4 April 2008.
4. "Marella Agnelli, Italian symbol of elegance and beauty, dies at 91". The Washington Post. Retrieved 9 July 2019.
5. Bruce Johnston (19 June 2001). . The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 3 September 2003. Retrieved 4 April 2008.
6. Aspesi, Natalia (16 November 2000). "Edoardo Agnelli, una vita fragile". La Repubblica. Rome. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
7. Philip, Willan (15 November 2000). "Suicide suspected after Fiat heir found dead". Retrieved 11 December 2015.
8. "Fiat family's search for an heir". Sunday Business. 26 November 2000. Retrieved 4 April 2008.
9. Darby, Paul; Johnes, Martin; Mello, Gavin (2005). Soccer and Disaster. Routledge. p. 82. ISBN 978-0-7146-5352-5.
10. "Tycoon's Son Pleads". Post-Gazette. 23 September 1990. Retrieved 4 April 2008.
11. . The Sunday Business Post. 3 December 2000. Archived from the original on 26 April 2006. Retrieved 1 March 2009.
12. "The curse of inheritance: Do wealthy dynasties always make for happy heirs?". Belfast Telegraph. 19 July 2007. Archived from the original on 9 October 2007. Retrieved 4 April 2008.
13. "هدیه مسیح؛ سیری در زندگی ادواردو آنیلی". Rasa News.
14. August, Melissa; Bower, Amanda; Cooper, Matthew; Frank, Steven; Keliher, MacAbe; Minhua, Ling; Martens, Ellin; Orecklin, Michele; Rawe, Julie; Song, Sora; Tyrangiel, Josh (27 November 2000). . Time. Archived from the original on 22 November 2010. Retrieved 4 April 2008.
15. Clark, Jennifer (21 November 2011). Mondo Agnelli: Fiat, Chrysler, and the Power of a Dynasty. John Wiley & Sons. p. 384. ISBN 9781118236116. Retrieved 10 July 2019.
16. "Fiat Magnate's Son Found Dead".
17. Staff writer (17 April 2011). "Interview with Dr. Marco Bava, a friend of Edoardo Agnelli". Cogitoergo (in Italian). Retrieved 11 December 2015.