2023-12-16 23:04:07
The Vatican criminal court on Saturday in first instance sentenced a high-ranking Italian cardinal, tried with nine others for fraud, to five and a half years in prison following a trial over financial operations of the Holy See.
Cardinal Angelo Becciu, 75, a former close adviser to Pope Francis, is the highest-ranking Catholic Church official to appear before the Vatican criminal court, the city-state’s civil justice system, which also inflicted a fine of 8,000 euros.
“We respect the verdict but we will certainly file an appeal,” declared Mr Fabio Vignone, the cardinal’s lawyer, assuring that his client is “innocent”.
At the heart of the trial: the purchase for 350 million euros of a luxury building in London between 2014 and 2018 as part of the investment activities of the Holy See.
A reform of justice
This affair has relaunched the debate on the opacity of the finances of the Holy See, while Pope Francis has sought to clean up its operations since his election in 2013. He has also reformed the judicial system so that bishops and cardinals can be tried by lay people and no longer exclusively by their religious peers.
The promoter of justice (prosecutor) Alessandro Diddi had requested sentences ranging from almost four years to more than 13 years in prison, in addition to financial sanctions, against the ten defendants who appear for fraud, embezzlement, abuse power, money laundering, corruption and extortion.
Various penalties
Of the ten people prosecuted, one was acquitted, two others were sentenced to fines and another was given a one and a half year suspended prison sentence. The heaviest sentence, seven and a half years in prison and a 10,000 euro fine, was imposed on Fabrizio Tirabassi, a former employee of the State Secretariat who allegedly received commissions in this affair.
Former number two in the Secretariat of State, the main body of the central government of the Holy See at the heart of this transaction, Bishop Becciu retained his title of cardinal but was dismissed from all his functions in September 2020.
The court found Archbishop Becciu guilty of embezzlement because he had ordered the payment, between 2013 and 2014, of $200.5 million in funds from the Secretariat of State to a “highly speculative” investment fund headed by Raffaele Mincione, also sentenced to five and a half years in prison and a fine of 8,000 euros.
The court also found the cardinal guilty of having paid 125,000 euros to a cooperative managed by his brother and of having paid 570,000 euros to an intermediary for the release of a hostage nun in Africa, but which were never used to achieve this objective.
Multiple intermediaries
The court also ordered the confiscation of property worth 166 million euros from the condemned, as well as the payment of 200 million euros in damages to the civil parties, four Vatican institutions.
Over the course of the 86 hearings of this so-called “London building” trial, the debates revealed the opacity of certain financial operations of the Holy See.
Among the highlights, the revelations concerning a telephone conversation between Bishop Becciu – on his initiative – with the Pope and recorded without his knowledge, shortly before the start of the trial, in which he asked him to confirm having approved confidential financial movements.
This acquisition at an inflated price highlighted the reckless use of St. Peter’s Pence, the large annual collection of donations intended for the pope’s charitable efforts.
The Vatican finally resold the 17,000 m2 building located in the very chic Chelsea district, at the cost of a heavy loss, estimated between 140 and 190 million euros.
The affair dealt a serious blow to the reputation of the Church and of Pope Francis, who has multiplied reforms to clean up the finances of the Holy See and fight against fraud.
In addition to the creation of a Secretariat for the Economy in 2014, the Argentine sovereign pontiff supervised the investments and activities of the Vatican Bank, in particular through the closure of 5,000 suspicious accounts.
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