Cardinal, playboy on trial over lost donations
A Swiss playboy, a femme fatale spy and a powerful Italian cardinal are preparing to stand trial in a Vatican corruption inquiry that has changed the way the Holy See conducts criminal justice.
Cardinal Angelo Becciu, 73, once one of Pope Francis’s closest confidantes, is accused of not only siphoning off at least € 100,000 ($168,800) from Vatican funds, but also of trying to sabotage the wider investigation that landed him and nine other defendants on the dock.
The case centres on a botched real estate deal involving a former Harrods warehouse converted into upmarket flats, on which the Vatican lost an undisclosed figure, running into millions of pounds, mostly coming from donations to Peter’s Pence, the papal charity fund.
When the trial begins on Wednesday it will be the first time a cardinal has faced charges at a Vatican criminal court, thanks to a recent papal reform that stripped them of the privilege to be judged only by their peers, rather than professional judges.
In their 487-page indictment prosecutors claim to have uncovered “a rotten, predatory and lucrative system” that let Vatican donations be used “as a sort of ATM”.
Other defendants include Raffaele Mincione, a playboy Italian financier once engaged to model Heather Mills before she married then divorced Sir Paul McCartney; Cecilia Marogna, an Italian intelligence expert nicknamed the Vatican’s Mata Hari; and Fabrizio Tirabassi, a Vatican accountant found to have a Swiss bank account with
1.3 million and precious coins and medals worth 8.5 million.