No defamation or denigration against Cardinal Angelo Becciu in the journalistic investigation of L'Espresso, signed by Massimiliano Coccia, on the use of Vatican funds and on the cardinal's resignation.
This was decided by the Civil Court of Sassari with a sentence issued by judge Marta Guadalupi.
The request for compensation for damages, for 10 million euros, presented by Becciu himself and which, if obtained, would have gone to charity, was therefore rejected.
The 74-year-old cardinal of Pattada was instead sentenced to pay the costs of the proceedings, quantified at 40 thousand euros , in favor of the Gedi publishing group and the three journalists sued: Massimiliano Coccia, the editor-in-chief Angiola Codacci Pisanelli and the then director Marco Damilano.
Becciu also asked that "defamatory" articles be removed from the websites, and that the publication of further reports on the subject be prevented.
In the request, the cardinal's lawyer, Natale Callipari, specified that the compensation would be donated "to works of charity" . According to the judge, who accepted the defense arguments of the lawyers Virginia Ripa di Meana and Elisa Carucci, «the interpretation of the facts offered by the articles in question must be considered entirely lawful in the context of the exercise of criticism, albeit undoubtedly expressed in a hard, harsh and polemical (but never abusive), directly proportional to the role of the highest level covered by the actor». And again, the sentence reads, "to demand a priori censorship of journalism carried out through the denunciation of suspected crimes would mean degrading, to the point of annulling it, the very concept of investigative journalism and denunciation".
(Unioneonline/D)
