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\n The Vatican Tribunal issues a more than 700-page document citing reasons for its judgement, made public in December 2023, noting how the defendants had a fair trial with full …\n <\/p>\n
The reasoning behind the verdict <\/p>\n
Certainly an unpleasant matter for Cardinal Becciu, who has always declared his \u201cabsolute innocence\u201d and spoken of a \u201cworldwide public humiliation.\u201d As for the exchanges between Ciferri, Chaouqui and others, and what followed from them \u2014 namely Perlasca\u2019s memo, his interrogations in 2020, and his later testimony \u2014 the reasoning of the judgment itself makes clear that this material did not influence the verdict. One passage states: \u201c\u2026without the probative contribution offered by Monsignor Perlasca having in any way influenced the assessment of criminal liability, since instead the Tribunal relied exclusively on multiple factual elements in the record that remained unchallenged, proving responsibility beyond any reasonable doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, the issues raised by Monsignor Perlasca \u2014 some \u201cwithout criminal relevance and in any case extraneous to the present trial,\u201d as another passage notes \u2014 were not deemed credible by the Vatican court and did not weigh on the proceedings.<\/p>\n
The Rescripta <\/p>\n
A more complex question surrounds the Rescripta issued by Pope Francis during the investigation, which changed procedures by granting extraordinary powers to prosecutors. Defence lawyers strongly contested these papal interventions, arguing that, among other things, they allowed the Promoter of Justice, to decide at his discretion which documents to hand over to the defence, and to heavily redacted them.<\/p>\n
The issue has fueled debate both inside and outside the Vatican about the principle of separation of powers and the right to defence. While the independence of the Vatican judiciary was \u201cexplicitly recognized\u201d by many foreign judicial authorities, including Italy\u2019s Court of Cassation and Switzerland\u2019s Federal Criminal Court, defence lawyers \u2014 especially Luigi Panella, representing financier Enrico Crasso \u2014 have argued that this independence was undermined by the Pope\u2019s \u201cmultiple\u201d and \u201cunusual\u201d interventions, made \u201cwithout any prior notice\u201d and to \u201cthe detriment of the defendants\u2019 rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Diddi has consistently explained that the rescripts \u201cserved to regulate activities otherwise not regulated,\u201d and thus \u201cwere a safeguard for all those affected.\u201d An order by the President Pignatone on 1 March 2022, rejecting motions to annul the indictments, addressed the issue in depth and concluded that the Rescripta did not amount to any violation of legality or the rule of law. The judgment also underscored that \u201cthe guarantees of a fair trial\u201d were \u201cfully respected by Vatican justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
What happens next <\/p>\n
Thus a new phase begins on Monday. The first day will be devoted to the reporting judge\u2019s summary, after which each party will present the grounds of its appeal.<\/p>\n
In addition to Cardinal Becciu, appeals were filed by:<\/p>\n
\u00a0– Enrico Crasso<\/b>, former financial adviser to the Secretariat of State (sentenced to 7 years in prison; a \u20ac10,000 fine; and permanent disqualification from public office);<\/p>\n
\u00a0– Raffaele Mincione<\/b>, financier (5 years and 6 months; \u20ac8,000 fine; permanent disqualification from public office);<\/p>\n
\u00a0– Fabrizio Tirabassi<\/b>, former Secretariat of State employee (7 years; \u20ac10,000 fine; permanent disqualification);<\/p>\n
\u00a0– Nicola Squillace<\/b>, lawyer (1 year and 10 months, sentence suspended for 5 years);<\/p>\n
\u00a0– Gianluigi Torzi<\/b>, broker (6 years; \u20ac6,000 fine; permanent disqualification; plus one year of special supervision under article 412 of the Penal Code);<\/p>\n
\u00a0– Cecilia Marogna<\/b>, consultant (3 years and 9 months; temporary disqualification for the same period).<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Diddi has also appealed. By contrast, the Secretariat of State and APSA, which had joined the case as civil parties in the first trial, have not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On September 22, in the new chambers of the Vatican Tribunal, the second chapter of the high-profile case…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,50696,257,21946,41442,149370,16,15,149369],"class_list":{"0":"post-441788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-holy-see","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-pope-francis","14":"tag-pope-leo-xiv","15":"tag-secretariat-of-state","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-vatican-trial"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115244406140726135","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}