Cardinal Angelo Becciu, at the end of the trial on the management of the funds of the Secretariat of State and the sale of the London palace, was sentenced to five years and six months in prison.
The decision was announced this afternoon by the president of the Vatican Tribunal, Giuseppe Pignatone, at the reading of the sentence.
Becciu, former deputy for General Affairs and former prefect for the Causes of Saints - a position of which he had been deprived three years ago by Pope Francis together with the prerogatives of the cardinalate - was accused of embezzlement, abuse of office and subornation of a witness.
The promoter of justice Alessandro Diddi had asked for a sentence of seven years and three months in prison against him.
“We reiterate the innocence of Cardinal Angelo Becciu,” declared the prelate's defender, Fabio Viglione, after the verdict . “We respect the sentence – he added – but we will certainly appeal ”.
An appeal which Viglione, together with his colleague Maria Concetta Marzo, looks at with "undiminished confidence", in light, he explains, of the "evidence that emerged in the trial, of the genesis of the accusations against the cardinal, the result of a demonstrated machination against him , and of his innocence".
At the end of the same trial in the Vatican ( DETAILS HERE ), the former Sardinian manager Cecilia Marogna, another defendant, was instead sentenced to three years and nine months in prison, with temporary disqualification from holding public offices.
The Vatican Court also ordered the "confiscation by equivalent of the sums constituting the body of the contested crimes for a total of over 166 million euros".
The defendants were sentenced, jointly and severally, " to pay compensation for damages in favor of the civil parties, paid in total at over 200 million euros".
(Unioneonline)