Judges delivered verdicts in the Vatican’s financial corruption trial on Saturday, sentencing Cardinal Angelo Becciu to more than five years in prison and convicting five other defendants for financial crimes. Source: CNA.
Cardinal Becciu, the Pope’s former chief of staff, is the highest-ranking Vatican official to face a trial in the Vatican’s criminal court. The 75-year-old Italian cardinal was found guilty of several counts of embezzlement.
The cardinal was sentenced to five and half years in prison, a permanent disqualification from holding public office, and a fine equal to more than $US8000 ($12,000).
The Vatican court’s president, Giuseppe Pignatone, read aloud the verdict in the culmination of the nearly two-and-a-half-year-long saga of the Vatican’s “Trial of the Century,” which sat for 86 sessions.
Cardinal Becciu’s lawyer, Fabio Viglione, told journalists that the cardinal “will certainly appeal” the ruling.
Five other defendants were also sentenced to jail time, including Fabrizio Tirabassi, a former Vatican employee who was convicted of extortion and a money-laundering charge, and Enrico Crasso, a financial consultant for the Vatican found guilty on several charges including embezzlement. Tirabassi was given seven and a half years in prison and Crasso seven years.
Italian businessman Gianluigi Torzi, who brokered the final stage of the London property at the centre of the Vatican trial, was found guilty of extortion and received a six-year sentence. Raffaele Mincione, the investment manager who owned the property, was convicted of embezzlement and money laundering and given five years and six months.
Cecilia Marogna, a Sardinian woman who was employed by Cardinal Becciu as a security consultant, was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison.
Cardinal Becciu was also convicted for using Vatican money to pay Marogna and of embezzlement for sending 125,000 euros ($200,000) of Vatican money to a charity run by his brother in Sardinia.
FULL STORY
Vatican court convicts Cardinal Becciu, sentences him to 5 years in jail for embezzlement (By Courtney Mares, CNA)
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