Sao Paulo
The Vatican Criminal Court convicted Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu, 75, of fraud in the first instance this Saturday (16). Becciu, a former close adviser to Pope Francis, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison.
In addition to him, nine other people were accused of crimes related to fraud, abuse of power, corruption, breach of trust, extortion and money laundering.
Becciu is the Catholic Church's highest authority facing charges in a Vatican criminal court. According to the AFP news agency, the cardinal was also fined 8,000 euros (R$42,900 at current exchange rates).
Becciu, former number two at the Secretariat of State, the Holy See's main body of central government, retained his title but was stripped of all his positions in September 2020. The Sardinianborn cardinal has always maintained his innocence, declaring that he “never stole a penny.”
The case centers on the purchase of a luxury building in London for 350 million euros (R810 million) between 2014 and 2018.
The judges found Becciu guilty of ordering payments totaling $200.5 million from State Secretariat funds between 2013 and 2014 to a “highly speculative” investment fund headed by Raffaele Mincione a financier who was also at five and a half He was sentenced to years in prison and a fine of 8,000 euros.
In addition, the cardinal was found guilty of paying 125,000 euros to a cooperative run by his brother and another 570,000 euros to an intermediary for the release of a nun held hostage in Africa. The money was never used for this purpose.
Of the ten people charged, one was acquitted. Two others have to pay fines and another was sentenced to a year and a half in prison.
The court also ordered the confiscation of assets of the convicts worth 166 million euros (894.8 million R$) and the payment of compensation of 200 million euros (around R$1 billion) to the civil parties and four Vatican institutions at.
The harshest punishment, seven and a half years in prison and a fine of 10,000 euros (R$53,900), went to Fabrizio Tirabassi, a former employee of the State Secretariat accused of receiving bribes.
The symbolic case shows the extent of the internal reforms pushed by Pope Francis. Since his election in 2013, Argentina's pope has changed the justice system so that bishops and cardinals can be tried in secular courts, not just religious bodies.