A Vatican court on Saturday sentenced Cardinal Angelo Becciu to five years and six months in prison for embezzlement. No cardinal had ever been convicted by the Holy See’s criminal court before. Becciu, 75, once advised Pope Francis and was himself mentioned as a possible pope.
The court also fined him 8,000 euros, about $8,726. His lawyer, Fabio Viglione, said the defense respected the sentence but would “certainly” appeal.
Becciu has said from the start that he is innocent. He called the accusations “totally unfounded” and insisted he never took a cent. Prosecutor Alessandro Diddi, who had asked for seven years and three months, said the outcome “showed we were correct.”
A London building at the center
The trial grew out of the Vatican secretariat of state’s 350 million euro investment in a former Harrods warehouse in London, which was to become luxury apartments. Prosecutors argued that monsignors and brokers took tens of millions of euros in fees and commissions. They also said one broker, Gianluigi Torzi, took control of the building and gave it up only after the Vatican paid him 15 million euros.
Becciu was convicted on three counts. One concerned the original 200 million euro investment in a fund that bought into the property. The second was a 125,000 euro donation of Vatican money to a charity in Sardinia run by his brother. Becciu said the local bishop had asked for the money to build a bakery that would employ at-risk youths, and that it stayed in diocesan accounts. The tribunal accepted the charitable purpose but convicted him anyway, because of his brother’s role.
The third count involved Cecilia Marogna, a Sardinian woman Becciu paid for intelligence work. Prosecutors traced about 575,000 euros in transfers from the Vatican to a Slovenian company she owned and said she spent it on luxury goods and vacations. Becciu said he believed the money would pay a British security firm to negotiate the release of Gloria Narvaez, a Colombian nun taken hostage by militants in Mali in 2017. He said Francis had authorized up to 1 million euros for that. The tribunal found both Becciu and Marogna guilty, and gave her three years and nine months.
The other defendants
Nine others stood trial beside him. Their verdicts were mixed: the court acquitted many of them on many charges, and cleared Becciu’s former secretary, Monsignor Mauro Carlino, entirely. It sentenced Torzi to six years, including for extortion. Prosecutors had sought three to 13 years for the group.
Becciu was also cleared of several other charges. The court ordered 166 million euros confiscated from the defendants and awarded 200 million euros in civil damages to Vatican offices.
Defense lawyers praised the presiding judge, Giuseppe Pignatone, for his even-handedness, but said the Vatican’s old procedural rules gave prosecutors wide room to hold back evidence. The trial began in July 2021 and ran through more than 80 hearings in a room inside the Vatican Museums, where a portrait of a smiling Pope Francis hangs on the wall.
It was not clear where anyone would serve their time. The Vatican has a jail, and Torzi’s whereabouts were not immediately known.
Sources
- TRT World – Vatican court sentences Cardinal Becciu to 5.5 years in fraud case
- Cardinal Becciu convicted of embezzlement in Vatican financial trial, sentenced to prison
- Vatican cardinal handed 5.5 years jail for embezzlement
