Former adviser to Pope Francis, Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu was found guilty of financial fraud and given a five-and-a-half-year prison sentence by a Vatican criminal court on 16th December. Cardinal Becciu was also handed a fine of €8,000. He is the highest-ranking Vatican official to be charged with such an offence. The 75-year-old was involved in a legal dispute, along with nine other individuals, linked to a real estate transaction in the London area that caused substantial economic damages to the Roman Catholic Church.
Once considered a papal contender, the charges against Angelo Becciu made him the first cardinal ever to be tried for financial crimes. During a two and a half year trial, his nine co-defendants were found not guilty on nearly fifty of the accusations against them whereas he was cleared of several more violations.
Cardinal Becciu claimed he had been directed to quit his high-ranking position within the Catholic Church in 2020 by the Pope following the publication of an Italian news magazine, L’Espresso, which revealed an inquiry into possible fraudulent transactions. “Until 6:02 p.m. on Thursday, I felt like a friend of the Pope, a faithful executor of his will. Then the Pope says he no longer has faith in me,” he informed in an interview at the time.
Giuseppe Pignatone, the president of the court, pronounced the decision and charged him with embezzlement, abuse of office and tampering with witnesses. Cardinal Becciu has refuted the accusations and his attorney declared that he is going to bring an appeal against the sentence. The verdict, according to prosecutor Alessandro Diddi, “showed we were correct.”
The trial centred on the 350 million euro investment made by the Vatican Secretariat of State to convert an old Harrods’ warehouse into deluxe residences. The government of the Vatican City was allegedly defrauded of tens of millions of euros in fees and commissions by Vatican monsignors and brokers, per the prosecution, and then demanded 15 million euros from it in exchange for giving up ownership of the structure.
While he was a senior official in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, the majority of the accusations focused on his “highly speculative” purchase of an opulent home at 60 Sloane Avenue in Chelsea, a wealthy neighbourhood of London. The property was later sold for a loss of at least €140 million ($152 million).
The Cardinal risked up to seven years in prison after being indicted with two charges of embezzlement stemming from the London transaction. Ultimately, he was adjudged culpable of theft stemming from the Vatican’s initial 200 million euro investment in 2014 into a fund that obtained a 45% stake in the London building. The tribunal found that making such a speculative transaction using church assets was forbidden under canon law.
Cardinal Becciu, who was the Vatican’s Substitute for General Affairs at the time and essentially the Pope’s chief of staff, approved the entire arrangement.
Prosecutors accused Cardinal Becciu of larceny after the first London probe yielded additional charges after he paid a Sardinian woman named Cecilia Marogna €575,000 ($627,000) for her intelligence services, and transferred €125,000 ($136,000) of Vatican money to a foundation in Sardinia. The money was reportedly misused by her to finance trips and the purchase of upscale items.The woman received a three years and nine months sentence.
Regarding the first charge, the Cardinal contended that the money was requested by the local bishop and was retained by the church to fund charitable endeavours. In response to the latter, he alleged that he believed the funds would be used to hire a security firm to broker the release of a nun who had been kidnapped in 2017 by al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists in Mali.
