CV NEWS FEED // A Vatican court has found Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, several former Vatican officials, and various businessmen associated with the Vatican guilty of various financial crimes, ending what has been dubbed the ‘Vatican’s trial of the century’.
On Saturday, December 16, Judge Giuseppe Pignatone announced the verdict for 14 defendants – 10 individuals, and four companies – standing trial for 49 charges related to illegal financial activities.
Beginning in July 2021, the trial quickly became the largest Vatican finacial trial to date, including 69 witness testimonies, over 100,000 printed document pages, and over two million documents presented by the prosecution.
Cardinal Becciu, the Pope’s former Substitute to the Secretary of State, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison. His attorney said that he would appeal the decision.
Becciu is the first cardinal to face trial, let alone be convicted by a Vatican civil court. In September 2020, as an external investigation into the Vatican’s finances revealed Becciu’s role in the scandal, Pope Francis asked for his resignation and changed Vatican law to allow cardinals to face trial in the Vatican’s ordinary court.
Prior to this change, even for civil crimes, cardinals only had to stand trial before other clerics.
In late 2020, Becciu was charged with abusing his position as Substitute to the Secretary of State, embezzlement, conspiracy, and witness tampering stemming from an illegal property deal in London using church funds in 2014.
The property deal, which cost the Vatican 350 million euros, was supposed to develop a London building into a high-end residential property. The deal fell through and in 2018, the Vatican withdrew, losing over 100 million euros. Becciu allegedly signed the deal and approved the use of Vatican funds for the investment.
Becciu also faced charges alleging that he misappropriated hundreds of thousands of euros of church funds, paying them to family members. He sent multiple transactions to family members, the key one being a 250,000 euro payment sent to bank accounts controlled by his brother, Antonio Becciu, who runs the Spes Cooperative, a Catholic charity in Sardinia.
In another secretive deal exposed by the trial, Becciu paid Cecilia Marogna, a private intelligence agent, using hundreds of thousands of euros from Vatican funds. Becciu argued that the payments were part of a secret operation approved by Pope Francis to secure the release of a nun kidnapped in Mali. Pope Francis denied these allegations, saying that he had never approved such a project.
As details about Becciu’s involvement emerged, he was also charged with witness tampering. Becciu was accused of trying to influence the testimony and silence his former deputy, Msgr. Alberto Perlasca, who was the prosecution’s key witness.
Even after the verdict, Becciu and his lawyers maintain his innocence, saying that he did nothing illegal and that they intend to appeal the verdict.
“We reaffirm Cardinal Angelo Becciu’s innocence and will appeal,” stated Becciu’s lawyer, Fabio Viglione, after the verdict. “We respect the ruling, but we will definitely appeal.”
The other convicted defendants also maintained their innocence and expressed their intent to appeal the court’s decision.
