VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican’s “ trial of the century ” had it all: part Dan Brown thriller, part John Grisham legal drama, part low-brow Shakespeare tragicomedy.
The financial whodunnit about the Holy See’s bungled 350 million euro investment in a London property was notable for its surreal cast of characters and exposure of Vatican vendettas, espionage and even papal ransom payments to Islamic militants.
The appeals trial opening Monday could be just as explosive.
WHY THIS MATTERS: The hearings could expose even more unwanted revelations about the Vatican’s inner workings, including details about Pope Francis’ hands-on role in the whole, sordid affair. That’s because thousands of pages of private text messages among the players recently became public.
A recap of the initial trial
The original trial opened in 2021 with its main focus on the London luxury property. Prosecutors alleged brokers and Vatican monsignors fleeced the Holy See of tens of millions of euros in fees and commissions to acquire the property, then extorted the Holy See for 15 million euros ($16.5 million) to cede control of it.
TANGENTS EMERGED: The original investigation spawned two main tangents involving Cardinal Angelo Becciu, a once-powerful cardinal.
One of those tangents led to the extraordinary revelation that Francis had approved paying up to 1 million euros in ransom to free a nun kidnapped by al-Qaida linked Islamic militants in Mali.
WHO WAS CONVICTED: Becciu was convicted of embezzlement for sending 100,000 euros in Vatican money to a charity controlled by his brother, and paying hundreds of thousands of euros in Vatican money to a self-styled security analyst. He was sentenced to 5½ years in prison.
The tribunal convicted eight other defendants of embezzlement, abuse of office, fraud and other charges, but acquitted them of many counts.
All the defendants maintained their innocence and appealed.
Possible appeals trial flashpoints
THE TEXT MESSAGES: In the two years since the verdicts were delivered, thousands of pages of WhatsApp text and audio messages exchanged between some of the players have become public, throwing fresh doubt about the credibility of the trial and the Vatican legal system. These private communications, published by Domani newspaper, suggest questionable conduct by Vatican police, prosecutors and the late pope — and a behind-the-scenes effort to target Becciu.
″If it gets out that we all agreed, it’s the end,” warned one message. “Because if we all knew, the trial is null and void and it’s a conspiracy.”
Lawyers for Becciu and other defendants seek to enter the chats into evidence; at least one devoted 80 pages of his appeals motion to them. The lawyers say the chats bolster their claims that their clients didn’t get a fair trial in an absolute monarchy where Francis intervened repeatedly in the investigation. They say the chats prove the investigation that led to the trial, willed by Francis as a sign of his commitment to financial reform, was contaminated from the start.
WHAT IT COULD CHANGE: Even if the chats are admitted, it’s unclear what effect they might have on the appeals, since the original verdicts were based on other evidence. Vatican officials have dismissed their relevance, saying the tribunal didn’t rely on the testimony of any of the people involved.
But the chats have already spawned follow-on criminal complaints in Vatican and Italian courts, and will likely be used by the defense in further appeals and legal wrangling. Once the Vatican verdicts become definitive, Italian, British and other courts will be asked to implement them, including with possible prison sentences or financial damages seized from frozen bank accounts. Those foreign courts may weigh whether the Vatican trial was fair, and some defense lawyers say they are prepared to take their claims that it wasn’t to the European Court of Human Rights.
The Holy See insists the trial was fair and the defense was given every opportunity to present its side.
THE PROSECUTORS’ APPEALS: While Becciu and eight others were convicted of some financial crimes, the tribunal largely threw out prosecutors’ overarching theory of a grand plot to defraud the Holy See. Prosecutor Alessandro Diddi, who will also prosecute the appeals case, has doubled down on his original thesis and asked the court to reconsider all but a few of its acquittals.
In a text message to The Associated Press, Diddi declined to comment on the chats.
The cast of characters
CARDINAL ANGELO BECCIU
The once-powerful cardinal had been considered a papal contender in a future conclave. Francis fired him in 2020, before he was charged, after becoming convinced he was involved in financial misconduct stemming from his time as the No. 3 in the secretariat of state.
Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu receives the red three-cornered biretta hat from Pope Francis during a consistory in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, June 28, 2018. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
MONSIGNOR ALBERTO PERLASCA
Perlasca was Becciu’s deputy and headed the Vatican administrative office that handled the London investment. Because of that role, Perlasca was initially a prime suspect. But after his first round of questioning in April 2020, Perlasca fired his lawyer, changed his story and began cooperating with prosecutors.
Perlasca escaped indictment and was eventually listed as an injured party, entitling him to damages. Only during the trial did it emerge that Perlasca had been persuaded to change his story to turn on Becciu.
FRANCESCA CHAOUQUI
Perhaps none of the trial’s surreal twists was as jaw-dropping as when Chaouqui, a controversial figure from the Vatican’s past, emerged as having had the starring role in persuading Perlasca to change his testimony.
Chaouqui, a public relations specialist, is known for her role in the “Vatileaks” scandal of 2015-2016, when she was convicted by the same tribunal of conspiring to leak confidential Vatican documents to journalists and received a 10-month suspended sentence.
Public relations specialist Francesca Chaouqui talks to reporters as she arrives to testify in a trial at the Vatican, Jan. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)
When Perlasca was being questioned on the stand, it emerged that Chaouqui had engaged in an elaborate plot with a Perlasca family friend to persuade him to turn on Becciu.
Chaouqui declined the AP’s request for comment.
KEY BACKGROUND: Chaouqui openly nurtured a grudge against Becciu because she blamed him for her Vatileaks prosecution. She saw the London investigation as a chance to expose what she said were Becciu’s lies and crimes, but she needed Perlasca to turn on Becciu to accomplish it.
GENEVIEVE CIFERRI
Ciferri is the family friend desperate to help Perlasca avoid prosecution. The 3,225 pages of WhatsApp messages are the four years of correspondence, from 2020-2024, between her and Chaouqui. According to the chats, the two devised a plan in which Chaouqui posed as a retired magistrate and passed legal advice onto Perlasca via Ciferri. Ciferri turned over some of the messages to Vatican prosecutors after she grew suspicious of Chaouqui, whom she believed had lied about her close relations to the investigators and Francis.
In a statement to AP, Ciferri said the chats were of no importance to the appeals trial itself, since the convictions didn’t hinge on Perlasca’s testimony. She said the chats were instead a “collateral” affair that was being investigated separately.
“Continuing to exaggerate the importance of the chat messages makes no sense and is only a useless pretext, while the appeal will be based on the actual crimes and the individual responsibilities of each person for each count,” Ciferri wrote.
The Vatican hasn’t disputed the authenticity of the audio or commented on its contents.
POPE FRANCIS
The trial revealed that Francis had intervened in the investigation by penning four secret decrees that greatly benefited prosecutors. The decrees, signed in 2019 and 2020, gave prosecutors wide-ranging powers to investigate, including via unchecked wiretapping and deviating from existing laws.
Francis’ role bigger than previously known
Defense lawyers said such secret intervention in a criminal investigation by an absolute monarch with supreme legislative, executive and judicial power confirmed that there was no separation of powers in the Vatican and that the defendants couldn’t get a fair trial.
The tribunal dismissed the significance of the decrees. The prosecutor defended them for providingunspecified guarantees.
FRANCIS’ MESSAGES: But then came the WhatsApp messages, which showed Francis had an even greater role. There are references to prosecutors speaking with Francis about the investigation, claims by Chaouqui that she was working for him and detailed descriptions of interactions between Francis and Perlasca, who lived in the same Vatican hotel.
Francis even lent Perlasca money after his Vatican bank accounts were frozen, the correspondence shows.
The messages include photographs of correspondence between Francis and Perlasca, including one in which Perlasca asks the pope for forgiveness and for help getting a new job in the Vatican diplomatic service once he had decided to cooperate with prosecutors. In another, the pope encouraged him on the eve of his second round of questioning, when he turned definitively on Becciu.
“Dear brother,” Francis wrote Perlasca Aug. 19, 2020, a few days before the questioning. “Thanks so much for your letter of yesterday. I am close to you and I pray for you. Please do the same for me. You can count on me.”
Perlasca is now a prosecutor in another Vatican court.
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