A two and a half year corruption trial that exposed infighting and intrigue in the highest echelons of the Vatican is set to close when a court is due to hand down verdicts for a once-powerful cardinal and nine other people.
Judge Giuseppe Pignatone will on Saturday read out the verdicts of the three-judge panel in the converted courtroom in the Vatican Museums.
Cardinal Angelo Becciu, 75, a former adviser to Pope Francis and once considered a papal contender himself, is the first-ever cardinal to be prosecuted in the Vatican’s criminal court and the most senior clergyman in the Catholic Church to face justice in the tiny city-state.
He is charged with embezzlement, abuse of office and trying to induce a witness to give false testimony.
Becciu has denied all wrongdoing, as have the other nine defendants – including financiers, lawyers and ex-Vatican employees – also charged with financial crimes, including fraud, money laundering and extortion.
Prosecutor Alessandro Diddi has requested seven years and three months in jail for Becciu, and between almost four and 13 years for the others.
The trial, which began in July 2021, played out in 85 hearings. It revolved mostly around a messy purchase of a building in London by the Secretariat of State, the Vatican’s key administrative and diplomatic department.
Becciu held the number two position there in 2014 when it began investing in a fund managed by Italian financier Raffaele Mincione, securing about 45 percent of the building at 60 Sloane Avenue.
In 2018, by which time Becciu had moved to another Vatican job, the Secretariat of State felt it was being deceived by Mincione and turned to another financier, Gianluigi Torzi, for help in squeezing Mincione out and buying the rest of the building.
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