Andrew Bolt: Latest twist in George Pell witch hunt puts Victorian authorities in firing line
Investigators in three countries are checking whether Vatican officials sent bribes to Victoria to frame Cardinal George Pell for child sex abuse — but still the state’s police force refuses to investigate. And it’s very odd, writes Andrew Bolt.
Opinion
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Something smells in Victoria. Investigators in three countries are checking whether Vatican officials sent bribes to Victoria to frame Cardinal George Pell for child sex abuse.
Law enforcement bodies in Italy, the Vatican and Australia think there may be something fishy about four payments sent here when Pell was falsely accused and jailed for a crime he could not have committed.
But only Victoria’s police refuses to investigate. How odd. Some might say “convenient”.
Victoria Police, which tried 26 times to get Pell convicted as a paedophile, has been alerted by Austrac to these payments.
Austrac is the watchdog that monitors suspicious financial transactions, so you’d assume it wasn’t passing on idle gossip, just for amusement.
Yet that’s how Victoria Police treated this news. Here is its response to media inquiries: “Austrac has made Victoria Police aware of transfer of monies from the Vatican over a period of time to Australia.
“They have not advised Victoria Police of any suspicious activity related to these transactions.
“In the absence of any other evidence or intelligence, Victoria Police has noted the advice from Austrac. We are not at this time conducting any further investigation.”
Pardon? Compare this official incuriosity with the response of many other authorities.
Vatican police and prosecutors are checking these payments, originally said to total $1.1m, but now more than $2m.
The Pope seems to be checking, too, sacking the Cardinal accused of sending the money, as well as of embezzling much more, and summoning the Vatican’s ambassador to Australia — his papal nuncio — to talk to him.
Interpol is also interested in this Cardinal, Angelo Becciu, formerly second in charge of the Vatican’s secretariat of state, and issued an international alert for the arrest of a woman paid $800,000 by Becciu to build a secret “intelligence network”.
Italian police are also interested, and have arrested that woman, Cecilia Marogna, and assisted with other Vatican requests for help in investigating a Cardinal that Pell had been investigating, too, as head of the Vatican’s finances until he was forced to return to Australia to answer false charges that he’d attacked many boys, including two boys at once in his cathedral.
In Australia, Austrac is interested, saying it has passed on information on the transfers to Australia to the Australian Federal Police and Victoria Police.
The AFP is also interested enough to say it is “undertaking a review of the relevant information” and has “referred aspects of this matter to the Victorian Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission”.
That last body — IBAC — investigates official corruption, like Victoria Police’s astonishing secret deal with barrister Nicola Gobbo to inform on her clients. But of all these bodies, only one has said it’s not interested — Victoria’s police.
Note well: I’m not saying corruption explains why Pell was falsely accused, charged, convicted or sentenced for child sex crimes.
We’ve seen no hard evidence. Becciu denies making any such payments. We don’t know where they went. The lone accuser in the case in which Pell was convicted says he received no money.
There may be nothing to these allegations, even if one of Pell’s accusers bought a property worth nearly $500,000 just a month after one of the alleged payments.
But here’s another contrast. Victoria Police says it won’t investigate these payments because Austrac did not advise it of “any suspicious activity”.
Yet it started investigating Pell in 2013 even before it had one complaint that he’d done anything suspicious.
For context, here’s a timeline. Pell investigated Becciu after being appointed head of Vatican finances in 2014. In June 2015, a man accused Pell of abusing him and a friend (although the friend, now dead, denied it, and the High Court this year threw out Pell’s conviction). In December 2015, police appealed for more “victims” to come forward. In 2016, two men with criminal records claimed Pell abused them at a pool.
Police eventually charged Pell with no fewer than 26 charges of child sexual abuse of nine boys, but all were so weak or ridiculous that they failed.
Sure, I can understand why Victoria Police does not want to now check whether it was played and Pell set up. After all, new police chief Shane Patton supervised the Pell investigation, and Premier Daniel Andrews refused to accept the overturning of Pell’s conviction, telling Pell’s supposed “victims”: “I believe you.”
But Victoria Police, more than anyone, should want to know the truth. Can we trust justice in Victoria? Was Pell framed?
Andrew Bolt is a Herald Sun columnist
Originally published as Andrew Bolt: Latest twist in George Pell witch hunt puts Victorian authorities in firing line