© 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 Photograph
By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Cardinal Angelo Becciu, probably the most senior Catholic Church official ever to face trial earlier than a Vatican legal courtroom, was convicted on Saturday of embezzlement and fraud and sentenced to five-and-a-half years in jail.
The Italian prelate’s lawyer, Fabio Viglione, instructed reporters within the courtroom he would attraction, saying his shopper was harmless. Becciu, who lives within the Vatican, was anticipated to stay free in the intervening time.
In all, 10 defendants had been accused of crimes together with fraud, abuse of workplace and cash laundering. All denied wrongdoing.
It took Courtroom President Giuseppe Pignatone 25 minutes to learn all of the verdicts and sentences.
Becciu, like a lot of the different defendants, was convicted on some counts and acquitted of others. Just one, Becciu’s former secretary, Father Mauro Carlino, was acquitted of all fees.
The trial, which uncovered infighting and intrigue within the highest echelons of the Vatican, lasted for 86 classes over two-and-a-half years.
It revolved largely across the messy buy of a constructing in London by the Secretariat of State, the Vatican’s key administrative and diplomatic division.
Becciu, then an archbishop, held the quantity two place there in 2013 when it started investing in a fund managed by Italian financier Raffaele Mincione, securing about 45% of the constructing at 60 Sloane Avenue, in an upmarket district of town.
Mincione was discovered responsible of embezzlement and cash laundering and given the identical sentence as Becciu.
IRRESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT
The courtroom mentioned Becciu had been irresponsible and “extremely speculative” to speculate greater than $200 million with Mincione’s fund between 2013-2014, noting this was a couple of third of the holdings of the Secretariat of State on the time.
In 2018, with Becciu in one other 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 response to prosecutors. He was discovered responsible of fraud and extortion and sentenced to 6 years.
The Vatican offered the constructing final yr, taking an estimated lack of about 140 million euros ($150 million).
Becciu, who was fired by Pope Francis from his subsequent job in 2020 for alleged nepotism, however stays a cardinal, was additionally discovered responsible of embezzlement for funnelling cash and contracts to firms or charities managed by his brothers on their native island of Sardinia.
One other accusation concerned his hiring of Cecilia Marogna, a self-styled safety analyst, additionally from Sardinia, as a part of a secret venture to assist win freedom for a nun who had been kidnapped in Mali.
Marogna, 46, obtained 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 obtained some in money, prosecutors instructed the courtroom.
Italian police mentioned Marogna had spent a lot of the cash on luxurious clothes and well being spas. Each she and Becciu had been discovered responsible of aggravated fraud associated to the switch of cash and Marogna was ordered to return the cash to the Vatican.
Enrico Crasso, a banker who managed funds for the Secretariat of State, was convicted of cash laundering and sentenced to seven years. Fabrizio Tirabassi, who labored within the Secretariat, was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years.
The courtroom ordered Becciu, Mincione, Tirabassi and Crasso to repay a complete of greater than 100 million euros to the Vatican.
Nicola Squillace, a lawyer who labored with each Crasso and Tirabassi, was given a suspended sentence of a yr and 10 months.
Rene Bruelhart, a Swiss lawyer and former president of the Vatican’s Monetary Intelligence Unit, and its director, Italian Tommaso Di Ruzza, had been convicted of administrative omission and ordered to pay small fines.