Follow the ‘money trail’ to investigate Vatican plot: Pell’s barrister
George Pell’s lawyer, Robert Richter QC, calls for a global investigation into claims of interference in his sex-abuse case.
Authorities should investigate allegations that a disgraced Catholic cardinal used Vatican funds to corrupt the sex-abuse case levelled against George Pell, according to his former defence barrister.
Robert Richter QC, Cardinal Pell’s lead barrister in the Melbourne County and Magistrates courts, said the Hollywood-style claims that more than $1.1m in church money was used as a bribe should be independently examined.
Three prominent Italian newspapers have reported that Cardinal Giovanni Becciu, a rival of Cardinal Pell, was suspected of paying the money to influence the failed case against him.
Viv Waller, the lawyer representing the complainant, said he had not received any of the money allegedly sent from the Vatican.
No evidence confirming the plot has been furnished by Cardinal Becciu’s accusers.
Ms Waller said the surviving altar boy in the criminal case had no idea about what was being alleged. “My client denies any knowledge or receipt of any payments,” she said.
Mr Richter said the allegations were serious and should be investigated by authorities with the capacity to track money. “These are serious allegations and they need to be investigated properly and independently,” he said.
“Only then will we know where it’s gone.”
Victoria Police has not received a complaint about the money transfers, which have further scandalised the Vatican and coincided with Cardinal Pell’s return to Rome.
Cardinal Becciu has strongly denied any wrongdoing.
“I categorically deny interfering in any way in the criminal trial of Cardinal Pell,’’ he said.
Italian newspapers have reported that Cardinal Becciu is suspected of arranging for €700,000 ($1.1m) to be sent to unnamed people in Australia to ensure unfavourable evidence against Cardinal Pell.
There has long been unsubstantiated speculation about outside interference in the Pell charges but no one has provided evidence to back up these claims.
The Italian newspaper Il Messaggero quoted the former right-hand man to Cardinal Becciu claiming that a bank transfer was made from the Vatican to a bank in Australia.
The article quotes Monsignor Alberto Perlasca as saying the transfer was made at the same time that the child-abuse case against Cardinal Pell was developing in Australia.
Monsignor Perlasca worked closely with Cardinal Becciu when the latter was second in charge at the Vatican’s secretariat of state.
Vatican sources suggest the Pope is considering the launch of a “maxi processo” — a kind of super inquiry — to investigate the allegations against Cardinal Becciu.
Those include claims of multi-million-pound London property deals and the existence of a slush fund to dig dirt on alleged enemies, including Cardinal Pell.
On September 24, Francis met with Salvatore De Giorgi, Cardinal and Emeritus Archbishop of Palermo in Sicily, a dialogue confirmed in the Holy See’s “Bollettino”. The focus of this meeting, Vatican sources say, is the Pope’s consideration of a relaunch of the work of the first so-called “Vatileaks” financial investigative team.
This had been an early, first step in cleaning up the Vatican’s finances, launched by Pope Benedict. Cardinal De Giorgi had worked as part of this first commission of inquiry alongside cardinals Jozef Tomko and Julian Herranz Casad.
There is no obvious explanation for the transfer of the cash from the Vatican — if the reporting is accurate.
One theory is that money could have been sent to Australia to help fund Cardinal Pell’s multi-million-dollar legal bill incurred while fighting sex-abuse charges in four courts.
There has never been a transparent explanation of who funded Cardinal Pell’s court defence, although he is a popular figure among many in the church, despite the allegations against him.
Cardinal Pell was jailed for more than a year after being wrongly convicted of abusing two Melbourne choirboys in St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in the mid-1980s.
The first County Court trial resulted in a hung jury and he was convicted in the second trial of abusing two boys in a cathedral sacristy and one of the children in a corridor soon after being made archbishop of Melbourne.
The conviction and jailing of Cardinal Pell, now 79, made him the most senior Catholic in the world to have been convicted of child-sex crimes. The prosecution’s case fell apart dramatically in the High Court, which freed Cardinal Pell this year.
Cardinal Becciu was sacked by Francis last month, as Vatican investigators sifted through his spending record at the secretariat of state.
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