Vatican City, Dec 16 (EFE).- Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu was sentenced on Saturday to five years and six months in prison for financial irregularities, according to the Apostolic Signatura, which also convicted eight other defendants in the case, mostly financial agents and intermediaries.
The 75-year-old cardinal, the first to stand trial before the Vatican court, was “forever” barred from serving the Holy See, according to the tribunal’s president, Giuseppe Pignatone. The cardinal must also pay a fine of 8,000 euros (8,726 dollars).
The trial examined over the past two and a half years the purchase of a building in central London orchestrated by the Vatican Secretariat of State when Becciu was its successor for General Affairs (2011-2018), a speculative operation that created a hole in the s of the Holy See of at least 139 million euros (151.6 million dollars).
The promoter of justice asked for seven years and three months in prison for the cardinal.
In this case, which involved a total of ten defendants, Fabrizio Tirabassi, an employee of the istrative office of the Vatican Secretariat of State, was also sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.
On the other hand, the sentences also fell on the financial brokers and intermediaries of the real estate operation, accused of profiting from and defrauding the Holy See.
Enrico Crasso was sentenced to seven years in prison and a fine of 10,000 euros (10,908 dollars), Raffaele Mincione to five and a half years, Nicola Squillace to one year and ten months in prison, and Gianluigi Torzi to six years and nine months, all of them banned from holding public office.
The Cardinal’s secretary, Mauro Carlino, was the only one of the ten defendants to be acquitted.
The businesswoman Cecilia Marogna, advisor to Becciu and presented in Vatican circles as an expert in diplomacy, was also sentenced to three years and nine months in prison, with a “temporary” ban from holding public office.
Marogna received a payment of 575,000 euros (627,238 dollars).
The scandal erupted when the purchase of a building in the heart of London came to light, on Sloane Avenue, a former headquarters of Harrods galleries in the exclusive Chelsea neighborhood.
The accusation pointed out that the building had cost the Holy See around 350 million euros (381.7 million dollars) but was later sold by the Vatican for 214 million euros (233.4 million dollars).
Moreover, that acquisition ended up being used to extort the Vatican, revealing the lack of transparency and irregularities in the Holy See’s s.
During the process, other financial crimes allegedly committed by Becciu emerged, such as donations of 125,000 euros (136,000 dollars) that the cardinal deposited into the of an association linked to Caritas Sarda in Ozieri, presided over by one of his brothers at that time. EFE
gsm/dgp
