The Vatican’s main prosecuting legal professional started his closing arguments outlining ultimate rates from 10 defendants, which includes a cardinal, stemming from an investigation introduced in 2019 by internal reviews of suspicious fiscal activity.
Now, Alessandro Diddi, the prosecutor, was established to current his case over the training course of at least six hearings starting up July 18, marking the ultimate phase of a two-year-very long Vatican trialinvestigating the mismanagement of Vatican funds.
The alleged fiscal crimes his business office is directing in opposition to the checklist of defendants include multiple expenses of fraud, embezzlement, bribery, extortion, abuse of place of work, incitement to split the regulation, dollars laundering and the publication of private files.
Between the defendants are some previous officials of the Vatican Secretariat of State, “who did not know how to interpret the spirit and ideals of the church,” which contains being certain by canon legislation to administer church belongings with care, vigilance and thanks diligence, Diddi advised the Vatican tribunal July 19, according to Vatican Information.
Diddi referred precisely to the defendant, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who held the No. 3 placement in the Secretariat of Condition as the substitute secretary for general affairs from 2011 to 2018 — the time period of time when the unsuccessful expenditure in a residence in London was made.
Diddi concentrated his arguments July 19 on the Vatican Secretariat of State’s investment from 2014 to 2018 in an overvalued residence on Sloane Avenue in London, which resulted in a “big sinkhole” with the Vatican getting rid of much more than $200 million on the deal, he said.
Diddi said Becciu was the “mastermind” driving the financial investment and “passively” viewed the “dissolution” of Vatican methods.
Diddi also advised the tribunal July 18 that Becciu allegedly “meddled seriously” into the investigation and teamed up with other defendants to guide “press campaigns in opposition to the magistrates who had been carrying out the investigations.”
He also clarified that the money applied to commit in the Sloane home offer did not come from the papal charity, Peter’s Pence, as originally suspected by the Vatican’s auditor, but from profits from the Vatican lender.
Diddi was predicted to devote a July 20 hearing to the alleged roles played by the Vatican’s money watchdog agency, and its previous president, René Brüllhart, and director, Tommaso Di Ruzza, who are amongst the defendants going through fees of abuse of office.
