Report: Vatican investigates Francesca Chaouqui for perjury, witness tampering

The former PR consultant at the center of the 2015 Vatileaks scandal is under investigation by Vatican prosecutors, Italian media report.

The former PR consultant at the center of the 2015 Vatileaks scandal is under investigation by Vatican prosecutors, Italian media reported Wednesday.

The Vatican City’s Office of the Promoter of Justice is investigating Francesca Chaouqui, under suspicion of providing false testimony, and influencing witnesses in the recent Vatican financial crimes trial over the London property deal.

Francesca Chaouqui. Credit: RAI/YouTube

According to Italian media reports, Chaouqui is accused of witness tampering — taking money from Genevieve Ciferri, a close friend to a key witness in the trial, Msgr. Alberto Perlasca, to help shape his testimony — and of inducing Perlasca to give false evidence.

Chaouqui is also suspected of giving false testimony herself during the trial by concealing the extent of her relationship and coordination with other figures involved when she was on the witness stand.

Perlasca, who served as head of the administrative office in the Secretariat of State and chief deputy of Cardinal Angelo Becciu during the cardinal’s time as sostituto, had initially resisted cooperating with prosecutors but later became the primary accuser in the financial misconduct case against Becciu, which resulted in the cardinal’s conviction a five-and-a-half-year prison sentence in December 2023.

Perlasca’s decision to cooperate with prosecutors led to some of the most headline-grabbing accusations against Becciu before and during the trial, during which the priest also claimed that Chaouqui — through Ciferri, a personal friend of Perlasca — had unwittingly encouraged him to cooperate with prosecutors.

Chaouqui first rose to Vatican prominence in 2013, when Pope Francis appointed her to the Pontifical Commission for Reference on the Organisation of the Economic-Administrative Structure of the Holy See, a special commission to recommend financial reforms during the first days of his pontificate.

Chaouqui’s involvement in the recent case made headlines and caused a stir in court, since she was at the center of the last Vatican financial scandal and trial, and was herself convicted at trial and handed a 10 months in prison in 2016 for leaking classified Vatican information in the so-called “Vatileaks 2.0” scandal.

Becciu maintained during his own trial that Chaouqi’s involvement in the case was proof of a conspiracy against him and petitioned the court to dismiss the case — which judges declined.

Chaouqui has had a long and public personal feud with Becciu, whom she blames for her own trial and conviction.

And according to leaked text messages published in 2020, she texted Becciu in 2017 demanding his help rehabilitating her reputation, and warning him about things “that could get you in serious trouble I’m keeping to myself.”

She’s also said to have presented herself to prosecutors in 2020, shortly after Becciu was sacked by Pope Francis but before he was criminally charged, with an offer to cooperate with any investigation against him.

In April, the Italian newspaper Domani revealed a group of WhatsApp chats between Chaouqui, Ciferri, and Stefano De Santis, commissary of the Vatican Gendarmerie, that seem to show collusion between them as they prepared to give evidence in the Becciu trial.

These communications appeared to show that Chaouqui had foreknowledge of judicial moves against Becciu and may have played a role in shaping the testimony of Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, the prosecution’s key witness.

When the involvement of the women in coordinating Perlasca’s statements to investigators came to light in court in 2022, chief prosecutor Alessandro Diddi told the judges that he had received a cache of messages between Chaouqui and Ciferri, which had led him to open a new investigation.

Although Diddi filed many of the exchanges as evidence in the trial, he withheld dozens of messages, arguing to the court that they were under separate investigation by his office and had to remain confidential.

The exchanges between some of the most high-profile people to give evidence at the trial, which concluded in December 2023, appeared to suggest consistent cooperation between witnesses and someone from within the Vatican City Office of the Promoter of Justice, with Chaouqui showing detailed advance knowledge of several procedural moves by Diddi’s office, and details of the prosecutor’s case.

Ciferri herself remarked in the exchanges: “It’s fantastic how you know these indiscretions! In any case, I will never allow myself to ask you how you do it and who you deal with,” she messaged Chaouqui. “It’s enough for me to have noticed that they are one hundred percent true.”

The messages returned the spotlight to the Vatican’s chief prosecutor, Alessandro Diddi, a combustible and controversial figure, who has been accused by defendants in the trial of unfair and inappropriate conduct.

At the conclusion of the financial crimes trial in 2023, Vatican judges concluded that serious crimes had been committed by almost all of the defendants, but they largely ignored Perlasca’s testimony and appeared rejected Diddi’s central arguments and theory of the case — leading the promoter of justice to appeal a result he had essentially won, alongside the convicted defendants.

Diddi has also been accused of tactics which amount to intimidation and harassment, and is alleged to have refused offers of cooperation by defendants.

Chaouqui has not yet commented publicly on the new investigation. In past interviews, she has maintained that her actions were aimed at reforming Vatican finances and defending Pope Francis.

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Cardinal Becciu was convicted in 2023 of multiple financial crimes and the conviction was not based substantially on evidence coming from Perlasca working with Chaouqui through Ciferri.

The judges ruled that Becciu had illegally funneled Vatican funds to the benefit of other defendants in the trial — including over investments that became known as the London property scandal.

Separately, the judges found that Becciu was also culpable for passing more than half a million euros to his self-described “security consultant” and private spy Cecilia Marogna.

Throughout the course of the trial, Becciu repeatedly attempted to argue that his payments to Marogna were personally and secretly authorized by Pope Francis.

However, secret recordings by Becciu of conversations between him and the pope, as well as private letters between them submitted as evidence during the trial showed Francis repeatedly denying knowledge of the affair.

Becciu was also convicted of funneling Church funds to his brother, Antonio Becciu, in a case which has sparked a parallel Italian criminal investigation. Antonio Becciu is accused, along with others connected to the cardinal in his native Sardinia, with receiving Church funds meant for a local Catholic charity into his personal bank account.