© Reuters. Cardinal Angelo Becciu arrives at a consistory ceremony to raise Roman Catholic prelates to the rank of cardinal, at Saint Peter’s Basilica on the Vatican, August 27, 2022. REUTERS/Remo Casilli/File Picture
By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – A two-and-a-half yr corruption trial that uncovered infighting and intrigue within the highest echelons of the Vatican closes on Saturday with the important thing defendant, an Italian cardinal, praying that the courtroom will imagine his harmless plea.
Cardinal Angelo Becciu, 75, a one-time Vatican energy dealer, is charged with embezzlement, abuse of workplace and making an attempt to induce a witness to provide false testimony.
Becciu, essentially the most senior Vatican official ever to be charged with monetary crimes, has denied all wrongdoing, as have the opposite 9 defendants. The panel of three lay judges of the Vatican’s legal courtroom is anticipated to challenge verdicts late on Saturday afternoon.
The trial, performed out in 85 hearings, revolved largely round a messy buy of a constructing in London by the Secretariat of State, the Vatican’s key administrative and diplomatic division.
Becciu held the quantity two place there in 2014 when it started investing in a fund managed by Italian financier Raffaele Mincione, securing about 45% of the constructing at 60 Sloane Ave.
In 2018, by which era Becciu had moved to a different Vatican job, the Secretariat of State felt it was being deceived by Mincione and turned to a different financier, Gianluigi Torzi, for assist in squeezing Mincione out and shopping for the remainder of the constructing.
Torzi additionally fleeced the Vatican, in line with prosecutors who’ve charged each males with fraud, corruption and embezzlement.
Below a cloud of embarrassment, the Vatican offered the constructing final yr, taking an estimated lack of about 140 million euros ($152.71 million).
Becciu, who was fired by Pope Francis from his second job in 2020 for alleged nepotism however who stays a cardinal, has additionally been accused on fees associated to tangential elements of the investigation.
The cardinal is accused of funnelling cash and contracts to corporations or charitable organisations managed by his brothers on their native island of Sardinia.
One other accusation includes his hiring of Cecilia Marogna, a self-styled safety analyst, additionally from Sardinia, as a part of a secret challenge to assist win freedom for a nun who had been kidnapped in Mali.
Marogna, 46, acquired 575,000 euros from the Secretariat of State in 2018-2019. The cash was despatched to an organization she had arrange in Slovenia and he or she acquired some in money, prosecutors informed the courtroom.
Italian police stated Marogna had spent a lot of the cash for private use, together with luxurious model clothes and visits to well being spas. She is charged with embezzlement.
The opposite six defendants embody the previous president and director of the Vatican’s Monetary Intelligence unit, the cardinal’s former secretary, Father Mauro Carlino, and three former Vatican workers.
4 corporations related to particular person defendants, two in Switzerland, one in the US and one in Slovenia, had been additionally indicted. The businesses denied any wrongdoing.
($1 = 0.9168 euros)
