Allegations of embezzlement, fraud and a kidnapped nun: Vatican trial of the century to begin

A landmark fraud trial revolving around a high-ranking Catholic cardinal, London-based financiers and Vatican employees is set to start on Tuesday in the Holy See, promising to shed light on the way its finances are managed.

Angelo Becciu, a 73-year-old cardinal, close aide of Pope Francis, and former Substitute for General Affairs in the Vatican Secretariat of State – a post that involves managing the Church’s donations – and nine other people face charges including embezzlement, fraud and abuse of office in a scandal involving around a multimillion-dollar, loss-making property deal in Chelsea, accusations of extortion and a kidnapped nun. All the accused deny wrongdoing.

The trial comes after an investigation revealed how funds donated to the Holy See to carry out philanthropic work were allegedly used to finance “reckless speculative raids”.

Starting June 2013, when Becciu was Substitute, two London-based Italian financiers, Raffaele Mincione and Gianluigi Torzi, allegedly came to “be able to dispose of the [Vatican] State’s financial resources for their initiatives”, prosecutors said, calling their investments “ill-advisedly and unreasonably speculative”.

Prosecutors say that the Vatican contracted $200m of debt to invest in Mincione’s Luxemburg fund. Allegedly, part of the money was used to purchase part of a property at 60 Sloane Avenue for a disproportionate price; the other part was managed by the financier to pursue his interests, including the attempted takeovers of struggling Italian banks.

The Vatican turned to the other financier, Torzi, when it decided to part ways with Mincione in 2018 – but the two were allegedly in cahoots. Prosecutors claimed Torzi obtained that the Vatican paid Mincione another £40m for his shares of the property; then he added a clause to the paperwork that gave him control over the property. Later, Torzi allegedly demanded $15m to relinquish control, in the last of a series of deals that squandered hundreds of millions of euros of Vatican funds.

According to prosecutors quoted by Vatican News, an official news service operated by the Vatican, former Vatican investment manager Enrico Crasso and employee Fabrizio Tirabassi allegedly provided inside help to the two financiers and failed to inform their superiors about the clause that allowed Torzi to take control of the property. Both face charges including fraud but deny any wrongdoing.

Prosecutors also claimed that two men tasked with regulating Holy See finances at the time overlooked the anomalies of the deals. The former head of the Vatican financial regulator, Swiss lawyer Rene Bruelhart, is among the accused.

A separate strand of the trial will investigate how some €575,000 was funnelled into a Slovenia-based company owned by Cecilia Marogna, a woman who worked for Becciu. The funds were allegedly intended for intelligence activity to help missionaries in war zones, and free a kidnapped Colombian nun, but prosecutors allege some were used to pay for luxury hotels and goods and in cash withdrawals worth some €69,000.

Becciu is also accused of allegedly channelling money and contracts to companies or charitable organisations controlled by his brothers. According to ANSA news agency, Becciu claimed in a note earlier in July that he is the victim of a conspiracy and intends to prove his innocence.

The trial marks the first time a cardinal has been indicted by Vatican criminal prosecutors, as well as the first time that judges will publicly review the investments and consultant selection processes of the Holy See.

“I think [this trial] marks a turning point that can bring about greater credibility of the Holy See’s financial areas,” father Juan Antonio Guerrero, head of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, told Vatican News.

Guerrero said the trial showed that “internal controls work: the accusations came from inside the Vatican.”

He added that the trial was “about the past” and that he “didn’t see how the events of the past could repeat themselves”.

Cardinal Becciu is said to have had ambitions to become pope in the past, and was Substitute for General Affairs in the Vatican Secretariat of State between 2011 and summer 2018, when he became the head of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, an organization that assists the Pope in deciding on who becomes a saint for the Catholic church.

Pope Francis accepted his resignation in autumn 2020, and Becciu lost his rights and privileges as cardinal but retained the title.

A preliminary hearing will take place on 27 July in a makeshift courtroom Vatican Museums, because Covid restrictions and the size of the trial mean that the normal Vatican courtroom is impracticable.

Because of its size and the technical nature of some of its matter, the trial is set to last many months and generate a large number of documents.