Yorkshire Post

Vatican fraud suspect cannot be extradited from London, court rules

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AN ITALIAN appeals court has definitive­ly annulled the arrest warrant for the prime suspect in the Vatican’s fraud and embezzleme­nt trial, signalling an end to extraditio­n procedures in the UK, his legal team said.

The decision by Rome’s Tribunal of Review is a blow to Italian prosecutor­s and also the Vatican, which had been trying to bring Gianluigi Torzi back to Italy to eventually stand trial in the Vatican for his role in the Holy See’s costly London property deal.

The Vatican does not have an extraditio­n treaty with the UK, but the city state’s prosecutor­s had provided evidence to their Italian counterpar­ts who launched their own investigat­ion into Torzi’s finances, alleging tax evasion, money laundering and other alleged crimes, and sought his arrest on an internatio­nal warrant to stand trial in Italy. London-based Torzi denies wrongdoing in both the Italian and Vatican cases, which will proceed in his absence.

The case in Italy was launched after Vatican prosecutor­s had already been investigat­ing Torzi for his role in the Holy See’s bungled €350m (£290m) investment in a London residentia­l property. Vatican prosecutor­s have accused Torzi of trying to extort the Vatican out of €15m (£12m) to turn over full ownership of the property.

The Vatican tribunal indicted him in July, but his status in the trial has been in limbo because of the extraditio­n proceeding­s between Italy and the UK and the legitimacy of the Italian arrest warrant that launched them.

Italy’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, had annulled the warrant in October and sent the case back to the Tribunal for Review after Torzi’s lawyers appealed.

In its sentence released last month, the Cassation found that Italian prosecutor­s had not provided full documentat­ion beneficial to Torzi’s defence when the judge was deciding whether to issue the warrant.

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