Vatican court explains conviction of cardinal and others in ‘trial of the century’

NEW YORK – The Vatican court said Wednesday it convicted a cardinal of aggravated fraud and other charges because of his “objectively inexplicable behavior” in paying a self-styled intelligence analyst more than half a million euros in Vatican money that she then spent in luxury items. and vacations.

The city-state court issued 816 pages of written reasons for its Dec. 16 verdicts in the Vatican’s “trial of the century.” The two-year trial of 10 people arose from the Holy See’s 350 million euro ($380 million) investment in a London property, but grew to include a series of other financial deals.

Cardinal Angelo Becciu, a once-powerful cardinal who was No. 3, or “substitute,” in the Vatican secretariat of state, was the most prominent of the nine people convicted. He faces five and a half years in prison after being found guilty of embezzlement, fraud and other charges.

He and the eight other defendants have announced appeals, as has the Vatican prosecutor. Once the court’s written explanations have been submitted (almost a year after the sentences were handed down), both parties can prepare the basis for their appeals.

The trial centered on the Vatican Secretariat of State’s involvement in a fund to convert a former Harrod’s warehouse into luxury apartments. Prosecutors alleged that Vatican monsignors and brokers stripped the Holy See of tens of millions of euros in fees and commissions and then extorted the Holy See for 15 million euros to give up control of the building.

Becciu was convicted of embezzlement stemming from the Vatican’s original €200 million investment in the fund that invested in the London property. The court determined that canon law prohibited the use of church assets in such speculative investment.

Becciu was also convicted of aggravated fraud for his role in paying a self-proclaimed intelligence expert from his native Sardinia, Cecilia Marogna, 575,000 euros in Holy See money. He had said the payments were authorized by Pope Francis as a ransom to free a Colombian nun held hostage by militants linked to Al Qaeda in Mali.

The investigation showed, however, that Becciu essentially double-billed the Vatican, sending the same amount of money to a British security company that actually has experience releasing hostages. The nun was later released, but there is no indication that Marogna had anything to do with it, the court noted.

The court, led by Judge Giuseppe Pignatone, said Becciu never gave a reasonable explanation for why he paid Marogna the same amount of money, or why he never asked him for updates on his alleged efforts to free the nun.

Even when Vatican gendarmes told him that Marogna had spent Vatican money on luxury vacations and shopping at Prada, Becciu did not file a complaint with prosecutors or stay away from Marogna. Instead, they continued to communicate through a family friend.

“An objectively inexplicable behavior, all the more so in the case of someone in the position of accused, cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and for seven years substitute in the Secretariat of State, who for a long period enjoyed the full confidence of the Pope. ”the court wrote. “A conduct, furthermore, that the accused has never explained in any way.”

Marogna, for her part, was tried in absentia and provided contradictory and inconclusive explanations in her written defense, the court said. She was also found guilty and sentenced to three years and nine months in prison.

Most of the written motivations were devoted to unraveling the complicated transactions at the heart of the London agreement. The text also repeated the court’s earlier rejection of defense arguments that the trial itself was fundamentally unfair.