A Vatican court on Saturday sentenced a once-powerful Italian cardinal to five years and six months in jail for financial crimes at the end of a historic trial.
Angelo Becciu, 75, a former adviser to Pope Francis who was once considered a papal contender himself, was the most senior clergyman in the Catholic Church to face a Vatican criminal court.
His lawyer, Fabio Viglione, said they respected the sentence — which included an 8,000-euro (US$8,727) fine — but would appeal, continuing to insist on Becciu’s innocence.
Photo: EPA-EFE / VATICAN MEDIA HANDOUT
The cardinal had been accused of embezzlement, abuse of office and witness tampering, one of 10 defendants in a trial focused on a disastrous investment by the Vatican in a luxury building in London.
They included financiers, lawyers and ex-Vatican employees accused of a range of financial crimes — all of whom were found guilty on Saturday, barring one, Becciu’s former secretary Mauro Carlino.
More than two-and-a-half years after the trial opened, Vatican City State Court President Giuseppe Pignatone read out sentences ranging from a fine to more than seven years in jail.
The court also ordered the confiscation from those convicted of 166 million euros, and ordered them to compensate the civil parties to the tune of more than 200 million euros.
The Holy See had declared itself “an offended party” and four Vatican entities were civil parties, claiming hundreds of millions of euros, including for moral and reputational damage.
The trial shone a light on the Holy See’s murky finances, which Pope Francis has sought to clean up since taking the helm of the Catholic Church in March 2013.
Just weeks before the first hearing, Francis gave the Vatican’s civilian courts the power to try cardinals and bishops, where previously they were judged by a court presided over by cardinals.
At the heart of the trial was the purchase of a building in London’s upmarket Chelsea neighborhood, which resulted in losses that the Vatican claimed dipped into resources intended for charity.
Becciu was found guilty of embezzlement over the decision to invest US$200 million in 2013-2014 into a fund run by financier Raffaele Mincione, which the judges said was hugely risky.
Some of this money went to buying part of the Sloane Avenue property — a deal in which the Vatican lost between 140 million and 190 million euros, prosecutors said.
Prosecutor Alessandro Diddi had requested seven years and three months in jail for Becciu, who had always insisted he never took a cent.
Mincione was on Saturday jailed for five-and-a-half years, while another broker involved in the London deal, Gianluigi Torzi, was jailed for six.
The trial involved more than 80 hearings in the dedicated room within the Vatican Museums, where a portrait of a smiling Pope Francis hangs on the wall.
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
COMFORT WOMEN CLASH: Japan has strongly rejected South Korean court rulings ordering the government to provide reparations to Korean victims of sexual slavery The Japanese government yesterday defended its stance on wartime sexual slavery and described South Korean court rulings ordering Japanese compensation as violations of international law, after UN investigators criticized Tokyo for failing to ensure truth-finding and reparations for the victims. In its own response to UN human rights rapporteurs, South Korea called on Japan to “squarely face up to our painful history” and cited how Tokyo’s refusal to comply with court orders have denied the victims payment. The statements underscored how the two Asian US allies still hold key differences on the issue, even as they pause their on-and-off disputes over historical
BEIJING FORUM: ‘So-called freedom of navigation advocated by certain countries outside the region challenges the norms of international relations,’ the minister said Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun (董軍) yesterday denounced “hegemonic logic and acts of bullying” during remarks at a Beijing forum that were full of thinly veiled references to the US. Organizers said that about 1,800 representatives from 100 countries, including political, military and academic leaders, were in Beijing for the Xiangshan Forum. The three-day event comes as China presents itself as a mediator of fraught global issues including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Addressing attendees at the opening ceremony, Dong warned of “new threats and challenges” now facing world peace. “While the themes of the times — peace and development —
RSS