VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The cardinal at the centre of an enormous corruption trial testified for the primary time on Thursday, saying he was the sufferer of a “media bloodbath” and would show he had not embezzled even one cent of the Vatican’s cash.
Cardinal Angelo Becciu is one among 10 defendants accused of fraud, extortion, cash laundering, embezzlement and different crimes, largely linked to the Vatican’s buy of a luxurious constructing in London for 350 million euros ($400 million) in 2018.
He and all of the others deny any wrongdoing.
“I’ve been preceded by an unprecedented media bloodbath, offered because the worst of cardinals … described as a corrupt man, grasping for cash, disloyal to the pope, involved solely with the welfare of my relations,” Becciu mentioned in a gap assertion.
The 73-year-old known as all of the accusations absurd, grotesque and monstrous. He mentioned he “by no means needed a euro, certainly a cent” of the cash that he managed for the Vatican “to be misappropriated, misused or used for functions that weren’t completely institutional”.
Becciu, as soon as a robust Vatican energy dealer, was the primary defendant to testify at the trial, which began in July however spent months slowed down in preliminary arguments.
As a sovereign state, the Vatican has its personal judicial system. The trial is happening in a makeshift courtroom within the Vatican Museums as a result of the common courtroom too small for all of the defendants and legal professionals.
Questions by Giuseppe Pignatone, the president of a three-judge tribunal, centered on accusations that Becciu helped steer Vatican cash to charity organisations run by his household on their native island of Sardinia.
Becciu was requested a few mortgage of 130,000 euros {that a} charity – run by his brother and which had obtained Vatican cash – had made to a pal of the Becciu household in Sardinia.
The cardinal mentioned he didn’t know concerning the mortgage at the time and solely discovered about it later within the media.
Pignatone additionally requested Becciu if he would proceed to claim that “pontifical secrecy”, just like state secrecy, may make it unimaginable for him to reply questions on co-defendant Cecilia Marogna.
Becciu mentioned he would nonetheless declare the proper except Vatican authorities determined to elevate it.
Marogna, 42, labored for Becciu in 2018-2019 and is charged with embezzlement. She obtained 575,000 euros ($640,000) from the Secretariat of State, in accordance the 500-page indictment issued final July.
The Secretariat of State is an important division within the Vatican. It runs its diplomacy, the administration the worldwide Catholic Church, and the Vatican paperwork.
A self-styled undercover agent, she has mentioned she used the Vatican cash to ransom kidnapped missionaries in Africa. Maragona, who can also be from Sardinia, has denied expenses that she used a few of the cash to purchase luxurious items.
Pignatone dominated that the court docket would ask the Secretariat of State to resolve whether or not pontifical secrecy might be waived.
The trial was adjourned till March 30.
(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
