Cardinal and nine others await verdicts in historic Vatican fraud trial | Corruption News

Angelo Becciu, a as soon as {powerful} cardinal and ex-adviser to Pope Francis, is charged with embezzlement, abuse of workplace.

A two and a half 12 months corruption trial that uncovered infighting and intrigue within the highest echelons of the Vatican is about to shut when a court docket is because of hand down verdicts for a once-powerful cardinal and 9 different folks.

Choose Giuseppe Pignatone will on Saturday learn out the verdicts of the three-judge panel within the transformed courtroom within the Vatican Museums.

Cardinal Angelo Becciu, 75, a former adviser to Pope Francis and as soon as thought-about a papal contender himself, is the first-ever cardinal to be prosecuted within the Vatican’s felony court docket and probably the most senior clergyman within the Catholic Church to face justice within the tiny city-state.

He’s charged with embezzlement, abuse of workplace and making an attempt to induce a witness to offer false testimony.

Becciu has denied all wrongdoing, as have the opposite 9 defendants – together with financiers, legal professionals and ex-Vatican staff – additionally charged with monetary crimes, together with fraud, cash laundering and extortion.

Prosecutor Alessandro Diddi has requested seven years and three months in jail for Becciu, and between nearly 4 and 13 years for the others.

London constructing offered for $153m loss

The trial, which started in July 2021, performed out in 85 hearings. It revolved principally 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 Avenue.

In 2018, by which period 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, based on prosecutors who’ve charged each males with fraud, corruption and embezzlement.

Below a cloud of embarrassment, the Vatican sold the building final 12 months, taking an estimated lack of about 140 million euros ($153m).

Different costs

The trial has shone a light on the Holy See’s murky funds, which Pope Francis has sought to scrub up since taking the helm of the Catholic Church in March 2013. Additionally it is a check of his reforms of Vatican justice.

Simply weeks earlier than the trial, Francis gave the Vatican’s civilian courts the facility to strive cardinals and bishops. Beforehand, they have been judged by a court docket presided over by cardinals.

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 costs associated to the investigation.

These embody funnelling cash and contracts to firms or charitable organisations managed by his brothers on their native island of Sardinia; and making funds to Cecilia Marogna, a Sardinian girl additionally on trial, for what Becciu claimed was a challenge to assist safe the discharge of a nun kidnapped in Mali.

Among the many different defendants on trial are Enrico Crasso, a former Vatican funding supervisor, Fabrizio Tirabassi, a former Vatican worker, and Father Mauro Carlino, the cardinal’s former secretary.