A series of searches were triggered this morning as part of a money laundering investigation opened by the Sassari prosecutor's office and relating to funds that from the IOR and the CEI would have ended up in entities belonging to relatives and friends of the former substitute for general affairs of the Vatican Secretariat of State, Cardinal Angelo Becciu.
The searches, carried out by the Guardia di Finanza, took place in Rome and in Ozieri, Pattada and Bono, in the province of Sassari, against the beneficiaries of the funds and persons connected to them following a letter of request in the Vatican.
THE LEGALS OF BECCIU - "We are extremely serene. The Cardinal, although completely unrelated to the initiatives and management undertaken by the Diocese and the charitable organizations, has always acted by sharing the humanitarian goals pursued meritoriously over time. On the basis of the conclusions of the Vatican investigators - which we consider blatantly unfounded - the Public Prosecutor of Sassari has taken a consequential initiative, concerning the same facts which, it must be remembered, will still have to be examined by the Vatican Court ".
This was declared by Fabio Viglione and Maria Concetta Marzo, defenders of Becciu in the trial underway in the Vatican on the management of the funds of the Secretariat of State.
THE BISHOP OF OZIERI - "In the name and in the interest of the Diocese of Ozieri, represented by Bishop Monsignor Corrado Melis, in expressing formal respect towards the judicial authority proceeding but also pain and regret for such an incomprehensible and destabilizing initiative, he represents that the investigative activity in progress appears prima facie unfounded, consisting of investigations carried out last July following disputes already denied on the accounting and documentary plan ".
Thus the associated law firm Luigi Pisanu-Ivano Iai, which looks after the interests of the Diocese of Ozieri, the subject of today's searches ordered by the Public Prosecutor of Sassari as part of the investigations into an alleged laundering of IOR and Cei funds that would have ended up in linked bodies to relatives and friends of Cardinal Angelo Becciu, he clarified the position of the bishop of Ozieri.
"The full legitimacy of the work of the Diocese, Caritas and Spes will be demonstrated, whose aims and concrete activities have the exclusive solidarity and charitable nature of these institutions", the specification. "It reaffirms for the umpteenth and, we are confident, on the last occasion, that the Diocese of Ozieri has always operated in compliance with religious and solidarity purposes also on the economic level, using its resources in the spirit of interventions never freed from proven situations of individual, family or work hardship ".
"In preparing such interventions, the Diocese identifies itself with the work of the local Caritas and, with it, makes use of the precious collaboration of the non-profit solidarity cooperative Spes, its concrete and real operational arm, to which regularly documented sums have been allocated , accounted for and accounted for in the unequivocal and incontestable absence of interference or conditioning by anyone, least of all by Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who is completely unrelated to the initiatives of the religious body ", conclude the lawyers.
(Unioneonline / vl)
