The nine people investigated for the affair of the 8 per thousand funds which, according to the accusations, were made to flow from 2013 to 2023 by the diocese of Ozieri into the current accounts of the Spes social cooperative whose legal representative is Tonino Becciu, brother of Cardinal Angelo , have been sent for trial today in the court in Sassari .

The investigation of the case in court was decided by the preliminary hearing judge Sergio De Luca at the end of the replies of the defense represented by the lawyers Ivano Iai and Antonello Patané.

Among the defendants, in addition to Becciu, those accused of embezzlement and money laundering are the bishop of Ozieri, Corrado Melis , the director of Caritas, Don Mario Curzu, Don Francesco Ledda, parish priest of San Nicola and bursar of the diocese, Giovanna Pani and Maria Luisa Zambrano .

The other three people are charged with false statements to the prosecutor and aiding and abetting . The trial will begin on April 9.

The lawyers' replies were immediate. "We do not agree - attacks the lawyer Ivano Iai, defender among others of the bishop of Ozieri Corrado Melis - with this decision of the preliminary hearing judge which clashes with both article 7 of our constitutional dictate and with the Concordat between the Italian State and the Catholic Church ".

For Iai, the decision represents "a serious precedent". "The Gup, in fact, has accepted the position of the Prosecutor's Office according to which in the management of the 8 per 1000 funds, the Bishops are public officials required to operate according to the rules of formation of the will of the Public Administration. This interpretation, devoid of any legal basis, in fact involves in a cascade every Diocese and the CEI. In fact, it does not appear that any of them have so far implemented public evidence procedures to distribute resources to be allocated to charitable works and the support of the clergy. A debate is about to open, already unfounded from the outset, which can only confirm what we affirm, at the cost of a useless waste of time and public resources and much suffering for the defendants and the local Christian community".