Vatican City court deposits full verdict in financial crimes trial

The release of the full decision clears the way for Cardinal Becciu's appeal process to begin

More than 10 months after receiving their verdicts, defendants in the Vatican financial crimes trial can finally begin their appeal process after judges in Vatican City deposited their full judicial rationale for convicting 9 people, including a cardinal, in a trial ending last year. 

The release of the full decision has been eagerly awaited by defense attorneys as the necessary precursor to appealing the court’s verdict, even while the decision makes a robust case against convicted Cardinal Angelo Becciu.

Final judicial verdict delivered by the Vatican City tribunal. Pillar image.

Judges of the ordinary tribunal of Vatican City deposited their final findings with the chancery of the city state on Tuesday, Oct. 29, with the text signed as of the same date.

 Although the findings of guilt and the sentences imposed were first announced by the court in December last year, that summary judgment did not outline the basis for the convictions, or explain the judges’ assessment of the evidence presented. Until the deposit of the final full judicial rationale, the legal appeal process remained effectively frozen, since lawyers for the defense did not yet know what conclusions, exactly, they would be challenging.

The judges’ release of the full sentence means that the defendants can finally begin the process of appealing their sentences, which handed down decades in prison and millions of euros in damages ordered by the court.

In nearly 750 pages of argumentation, the judges addressed numerous criticisms of the city state’s judicial process and institutions raised by defense lawyers over the course of the trial, as well as laying out the evidence and argumentation which resulted in the convictions handed down last year. 

“The Vatican [City] legal system recognizes the principles of due process, the presumption of innocence and the right of defense, which are in fact expressly provided for under the current rules,” the judges wrote.

Throughout the trial and following the sentence, lawyers and media supporters for the defendants have repeatedly claimed that the city state’s legal system lacked international credibility, and was subject to undue influence and interference by Pope Francis. 

These arguments have come most especially from supporters of the star defendant in the case, disgraced former papal chief of staff, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, though some have failed to stand up to basic legal scrutiny. 

Other defendants have launched international appeals against the Vatican City proceedings. Earlier this year, Raffaele Mincione, the investment manager from whom the Secretariat of State purchased the London building which triggered the trial, appealed to the office of the Special Rapporteur on independence of judges and lawyers at the United Nations.

One of the key clarifications of the full judicial sentence is the judges’ explanation for how the court defined the crime of embezzlement. 

Both Cardinal Becciu and Raffaele Mincione were convicted of participating in the illegal misappropriation of Vatican funds in the deal which placed some 200 million euros under the investment manager’s control on the Secretariat of State’s behalf. 

In a lengthy interview with The Pillar last year, Mincione said that he had abided by the contract he signed with the secretariat, and that investments he made — branded “speculative” and “self interested” by the Vatican — were well within the discretion granted to him by the contracts.

Becciu, in turn, argued that he could not be accused, let alone convicted of embezzling Church funds through the deal because there was no evidence he personally profited from the arrangement. 

In their full sentence, the judges outlined the applicable legal definition of embezzlement, which is drawn from Italian criminal law cases — some Italian criminal statutes are applicable in Vatican City as a result of the Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and the Italian state.

The crime is constituted, the judges explained citing Italian supreme court jurisprudence, when “instead of investing for the purposes for which the financial resources the person has at his or her disposal were intended, the person, in violation of the law and the regulations” uses them for any other purpose, in this case “to purchase shares in speculative funds.”

The judges ruled that, because the illegal use of Vatican funds by Cardinal Becciu benefited Mincione and the other defendants, “it is of no importance that he did not intend to act for [personal] profit.”

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. 

Italian investigators have also uncovered evidence of money laundering and embezzlement in the case.

However, the Vatican City judges ruled that Becciu’s guilt in the matter was determined irrespective of any criminal action or intent by his brother and any potential co-conspirators. 

Rather, the judges found, Becciu was found guilty of breaching basic Vatican financial laws prohibiting Church property or money from being sold or given to relatives “without a special permission given in writing by the competent authority.”

During the Vatican City trial, Cardinal Becciu insisted that, although he had knowingly funneled tens of thousands of euros into his brother’s personal account, his actions were ordinary practice.

In Mincione’s case, the Vatican judges ruled that he was legally culpable as the beneficiary of embezzled funds — Vatican money being used for illegal purposes — and should have, as a matter of professional due diligence, sufficiently familiarized himself with Vatican City law and realized he was participating in an illegal operation.

Mincione, for his part, has insisted that he signed contracts which were legal under the jurisdictions under which he was operating. Prior to the filing of criminal charges against him in Vatican City, he filed a lawsuit in the UK seeking a court judgment that he acted in good faith in his dealings with the Vatican — including a 2018 separation agreement which transferred ownership of the London building at 60 Sloane Avenue to the Secretariat of State’s designated proxy, Mr Gianluigi Torzi, who was also convicted of financial crimes in the case.

Earlier this year, the London court heard from Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, Becciu’s successor as sosituto, who ordered the separation from Mincione in 2018. Peña Parra told the court that the secretariat had been the “victim of serious fraud.”

However, the sostituto also conceded that in executing the separation and dealing with attempts by Torzi to extort the Vatican as part of the process, he had knowingly authorized the payment of “completely fictitious” invoices. 

“I was not honest,” the archbishop said in court. “I accept that.”

In the full Vatican City judgment handed down Tuesday, judges ruled that Torzi was also guilty of money laundering and embezzlement, along with Enrico Crasso, another outside investment advisor to the Secretariat of State, and Fabrizio Tirabassi, a former lay employee of the Vatican state department.

All three men were found to have participated in a complicated scheme to extort the Vatican for control of the London building following its acquisition.

Torzi was hired by the secretariat to act as a broker for the final sale of the building in 2018. As part of the conspiracy, Torzi strong-armed the secretariat by changing the terms of the deal, and trying to extract an unexpected 15 million euro, midway through the purchase. 

Torzi in turn accused Tirabassi and Crasso of threatening him and his family, demanding he turn control of the building over to them directly, not the Vatican.

In the conviction now being appealed, Cardinal Becciu received a sentence of five years and six months, a fine of 8,000 euros (around $8,700), and perpetual disqualification from holding public office. 

According to the sentence, he remains legally resident in his grace-and-favor apartment in the Palazzo Sant'Uffizio, despite new regulations issued by Pope Francis requiring cardinals resident in the Vatican to pay market rates for their accommodation.

Raffaele Mincione was given a sentence of five years in jail, a fine of 8,000 euros ($8,700), and perpetual disqualification from holding public office.

Gianluigi Torzi, an Italian businessman, received a six-year sentence, a fine of 6,000 euros ($6,500), and perpetual disqualification from holding public office. Torzi is currently facing extradition to Italy for separate allegations of financial crimes.

With the full final sentence now deposited by the judges, appeals by the various defendants are now expected to move forward but hearings are unlikely to begin before the new year.