The courtroom returns for the second instance hearing in the case involving confidential funds from the Secretariat of State used to purchase a building on Sloane Avenue in London. The defendant, Cardinal Angelo Becciu of Pattada, and the Promoter of Justice, Alessandro Diddi, will appear before the new court presided over by Monsignor Alejandro Arellano Cedillo, Dean of the Roman Rota, flanked by two lay judges.
Under Vatican law, the same prosecutor is prosecuted in both the first and second instance trials. Becciu will be represented by lawyers Fabio Viglione and Maria Concetta Marzo. The charges against him have been reformulated, and in this case they will be embezzlement and fraud. The appeal against the first instance ruling, filed on August 8th by the Office of the Promoter of Justice, requests that Becciu also be convicted in the second instance trial for "subordination to Monsignor Alberto Perlasca," a crime not recognized in the first instance trial.
"It must be determined whether Angelo Becciu's actions constitute a threat," wrote prosecutors Diddi and Gianluca Perone, "taking into account that, according to the now prevalent definition, it occurs when an unjust evil is threatened that can disturb the moral serenity of an individual." "I have always acted in the interests of the Holy See," Cardinal Becciu reiterated through his lawyers on the eve of the trial. He stepped back from the last conclave by not voting (but participating in the general congregations), once again proclaiming his innocence. In the first instance, Becciu had been sentenced to five and a half years.
The sale of the Sloane Avenue building, according to the first-instance ruling issued by the Vatican Tribunal then presided over by Giuseppe Pignatone, would have caused the Vatican coffers to lose at least €139 million. Pope Leo XIV himself, Vatican News recalls, alluded to this in his first interview published on September 18, when, speaking about the state of the Vatican's finances, he said: "The purchase of this building in London, on Sloane Avenue, was widely publicized, and how many millions have been lost as a result."
Tomorrow, 644 days after the first-instance verdict, the trial reopens with five hearings scheduled for the first week (September 22-26). This marks a new chapter after the first-instance trial, which began in July 2022 and concluded on December 16, 2023, with the conviction of ten defendants for crimes ranging, among others, from fraud to corruption.
(Unioneonline)