Andrew Bolt: Will Victoria Police investigate allegations of corruption in case against Pell?
Explosive allegations Cardinal George Pell’s enemies sent $1.1 million to Australia as he faced false claims of child sex abuse won’t surprise his supporters, but the burning question is will Victoria Police investigate the claim, writes Andrew Bolt.
Andrew Bolt
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It reads like a Dan Brown thriller.
Vatican documents show Cardinal George Pell’s enemies sent $1.1 million to Australia as he faced false claims of child sex abuse.
Pell supporters won’t be surprised. Many suspected corrupt Vatican officials paid off people to stop Pell’s anti-corruption investigation as head of church finances.
Now Italy’s top newspaper, the Corriere della Sera, reports: “700,000 euros sent to Australia through various wire transfers may have been used to ‘buy’ the accusers in the paedophile trial against Cardinal George Pell.”
The newspaper says “this is the hypothesis of the Vatican investigators” probing Vatican corruption and the role of Cardinal Angelo Becciu, fired by the Pope last week as a crook.
It says Becciu’s former deputy, Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, was now informing on Becciu, who Pell had been investigating until forced to return to Australia in 2017 to defend himself.
Perlasca reportedly alleges 700,000 euros were sent to an Australian account, apparently before 2018.
Italy’s Il Messagero made many claims, and says money was sent during Pell’s trial.
These are unproven and extraordinary claims. I’ve seen no evidence of such a transfer, although church officials last year showed me documentation of a huge purchase made by one person which involved more money than I thought such a person would have.
Yet Pell’s supporters still suspect he was nobbled by enemies in the church, with Pell serving 405 days in jail for a crime he could not have committed until the High Court freed him last April.
Can you blame them? So much about this case was bizarre.
Victoria Police started a taskforce to investigate Pell even before any complaints had been made.
It also advertised for his “victims” to come forward if they’d been abused – an obvious opportunity for exploitation by his enemies.
Police then hit Pell with 26 charges of abuse against eight alleged “victims” – charges so improbable that every one collapsed.
Be clear: I accuse no Pell accuser of telling lies. People can have false memories. And I accuse no police of corruption.
But why send $1.1 million to Australia? Who got the money? Why? The public evidence is unclear.
The answer could turn out to be totally innocent. And do these claims of conspiracy really fit the timeline of events?
March 2013: Victoria Police starts Operation Tethering to find possible “unreported serious crimes” by Pell.
2014: Becciu, second in charge at the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, orders the purchase of a luxury development in London with $250 million in loans from a Swiss Bank notorious for money laundering violations, and using a shady broker who earns $230 million in fees and profit.
2014: The Pope makes Pell head of the Vatican’s new Secretariat of the Economy. Pell starts to uncover massive corruption. In the next two years he closes 4000 Vatican bank accounts, telling me in 2016 that “the danger is those accounts were being used for money laundering… Who knows if it’s the Mafia?”
2015: Becciu, with Pell’s team on his case, reportedly tries to disguise the London loans by cancelling them out against the value of the property – a trick banned by the Pope.
2015: Newspapers report Becciu’s role in buying a hospital in 2012 which later collapsed with debts of more than $1 billion, after massive fraud and theft.
June 2015: the Vatican appoints its first auditor general.
June 2015: A man whose name remains suppressed tells police Pell abused him at his Cathedral in 1996.
December 2015: Pell orders the first external audit of Vatican accounts after finding millions of dollars “tucked away”.
December 2015: Police publicly appeal for “victims” who were attacked at Pell’s Cathedral when Pell was in charge.
2016: Pell warns the Pope about Becciu.
January 2016: Police appeal “for information in relation to allegations of sexual assault” at Ballarat’s Eureka Stockade pool in the late 1970s, when Pell used to swim there.
April 2016: Becciu cancels Pell’s audit. Pell appeals to the Pope, who backs Becciu.
July 2016: Two men, both with criminal records, tell the ABC Pell molested them as boys during horseplay in the Ballarat pool. (Prosecutors later withdraw the charges as hopeless.)
June 2017: Pell charged with child sex abuse and is forced to return to Australia to stand trial. Becciu sacks the Vatican auditor general.
Yes, conspiracy theories are suspicious, but Vatican police are now investigating this one. What’s the bet Victoria Police won’t?