The return of the documents of the trial to the office of the promoter of justice to proceed with what is requested by many of the 10 defenses: the preliminary interrogation of the various defendants not heard during the investigation.
This is the request, which he himself said "may surprise", advanced by the Deputy Pg Alessandro Diddi at the beginning of the second hearing of the trial in the Vatican on the management of the funds of the Secretariat of State .
Former Cardinal Angelo Becciu is accused of embezzlement and abuse of office, as well as for the "subornation" of a witness (it is Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, whom he allegedly tried to have the accusatory depositions retracted by calling the diocesan superior for help, the bishop of Como Oscar Cantoni) as part of an investigation that also involves nine other people and four companies.
For the prosecution, the trial must therefore be "reset" to allow effective respect for the rights of defense.
The Court will rule tomorrow morning, as well as on the requests for nullity advanced by the defenses.
The process originating from the purchase by the Holy See of the Sloane Avenue building in London, and also extended to other events, thus risks stopping even before starting.
In his speech at the beginning of the hearing - in the presence of only two defendants, Becciu and Mauro Carlino - Diddi admitted that "it is a duty to meet the defensive needs on the correct interrogation of the accused before this office".
"We interpret the rules of the Code of Criminal Procedure not as a way of harnessing the prerogatives of the defense, but rather as a moment of protection of these rights, and we want to give testimony that we do not want to trample them. And the possibility, now, of giving a questioning knowing the documents of the investigations is an aspect that must not be denied to the accused ".
The pg added said that "very violent attacks have been directed at this office and this Court. According to some there is a sentence already written. ".
The prosecutor also recalled that "there are those who even speak of false evidence. We did not understand what it would be. The trial is growing with a hype of out-of-line controversy - he continued -. Tell us what these false evidence would be. : eventually we would like to investigate this too. To think that there is false evidence in this process is something we cannot afford ".
President Giuseppe Pignatone also had his say on these aspects, underlining that "everything that is quoted on a journalistic level is totally irrelevant to us. Only what is in the records of the trial counts, especially when we manage to have them in their entirety. From part of the Court there is the utmost serenity ".
The civil parties - Secretariat of State, APSA and IOR - joined the request for referral to the prosecution of the proceedings, deferring in any case to the decision of the Court.
The request was instead defined "inadmissible" by the defense of the defendants, who insisted in various capacities on their claims for the nullity of the summons (another way of "clearing" the proceedings), contesting both the failure to interrogate the accused , both the "denial of justice" for the impossibility of exercising one's rights, and, above all, the failure to file the documents, in particular the audio and video recordings of the interrogation of the key-witness Perlasca, still missing and not available to the defense, despite the order on their deposit issued by the Court in the previous hearing on July 27 last.
In the end, President Pignatone postponed the hearing to tomorrow morning for the reading of the order with which the Court "will dissolve the maxi-reserve" on all the exceptions, requests and requests of the parties.
(Unioneonline / F)
