George Pell’s archenemy, Angelo Becciu, to fight jail sentence for Vatican emblezzlement

Cardinal Angelo Becciu – once himself a papal contender and later, nemesis of the late Cardinal George Pell – is the most senior Holy See official to be sent to prison for financial crimes.

Italian Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu. Picture: Getty

Disgraced cardinal and enemy of the late George Pell, Angelo Becciu, will fight his five-and-a-half year jail sentence for embezzlement, as Vatican watchers say his jailing could lead to a “proper clean up” of the highest echelons of the Catholic Church.

Judges in the Holy See delivered their verdict late on Saturday and banned Becciu permanently from holding any form of public office and fining him €8,000.

Becciu’s lawyer, Fabio Viglione said the cardinal ‘respected’ the verdict on a range of his financial crimes – including embezzlement – but said he would launch an appeal against the sentence.

A senior observer close to the case told The Australian last night that the verdict could finally open the door for a proper clean up of the Vatican.

“It is very important symbolically because this is the first time a lay court has issued a judgment on a cardinal in Vatican history. The Vatican Promoter of Justice himself has said that this was just one issue and that there are many others to address … hopefully, it is a sign that this is the start of proper clean up.”

Cardinal Becciu, once himself a papal contender and later, nemesis of the late Cardinal George Pell’s campaign to reform the Vatican’s sclerotic and opaque accounting and investment systems, is the most senior Holy See official to face such charges.

The full Vatican Tribunal, under the leadership of Court President, Giuseppe Pignatone, spent more than five hours deliberating on Saturday before announcing the Cardinal’s conviction and sentence for embezzlement in the late afternoon.

Pignatone a very senior former anti mafia prosecutor and judge, took nearly half an hour to read out all the verdicts and sentences in a special room in the building that also houses the Sistine Chapel.

Giuseppe Pignatone and Venerando Marano during the verdict of the trial for alleged financial wrongdoing of senior cardinal Angelo Becciu and nine others in The Vatican. Picture: Vatican Media

The other former Vatican officials were convicted of a series of financial crimes, including money laundering, abuse of office and fraud and sentenced to a total of 38 years prison as well as hundreds of thousands in fines.

The sentencing represents the denouement of more than four years of investigations, requiring statements from 70 witnesses heard over some 86 court sessions, many of them focused on the labyrinthine acquisition of a former Harrod’s storeroom in Sloane Avenue on behalf of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, the Holy See’s administrative and diplomatic arm.

The trial, given the Pope’s public blessing, was widely seen to have been an attempt by Francis to encourage unprecedented, official scrutiny of the historically muddy world of the Vatican bank and Holy See investments, reinvigorate stymied reforms of its financial dealings and bring them under 21st century accounting rules and oversight.

However veteran Vatican observers along with conservative critics of Pope Francis argue that proceedings also served to expose yet another, unexpected litany of embarrassments, including the continuing, ingrained culture of self-interest, inefficiency, blind loyalty and plotting and scheming within the highest echelons of the Roman curia.

Giovanni Maria Vian, a former editor of the Vatican newspaper, Osservatore Romano, described the Pope’s decision as akin to kicking a hornet’s nest.

The Vatican is the only independent state in Europe which continues to operate as an absolute monarchy, thereby giving the Pope supreme legislative, judicial and executive power. Defence teams throughout the trial have complained to judges that Francis’ behind the scenes intervention had seen him change laws several times, ostensibly to aid prosecutors.

Cardinal Becciu’s involvement in the Sloane Avenue affair began in 2014 when he was Sostituto (deputy) in the Secretariat of State. The property deal hinged around a fund managed by a London-based, Italian financier, Raffaele Mincione who originally secured 45 per cent of the building at 60 Sloane Avenue on behalf of his Roman client.

Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu. Picture: REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane

Four years later, Vatican officials began to question the efficacy of the investment and the property was passed on to another broker, Gianluigi Torzi, to see if it would be possible to buy the remaining 55 per cent of the building thereby pushing Mincione out of the deal.

However prosecutors charged that Torzi constructed his own, self-serving financial package, refusing to finalise the acquisition without payment of a further 15 million euros to himself, sparking prosecutors decision to charge all the brokers with fraud, corruption and embezzlement.

A red-faced Vatican was finally forced to sell the building last year, losing nearly 140 million euros in the process amid international opprobrium.

Pope Francis sacked Cardinal Becciu in 2020 after prosecutors also accused him of siphoning funds and offering contracts to organisations and charities run by his brother on their native island of Sardinia. While the Cardinal told prosecutors that it was normal to deposit Vatican funds with individuals, including family, for charitable use, the trial also heard that forged delivery receipts for around 20 tonnes of bread had been found on his home island of Sardinia. These had supposedly been earmarked for delivery to the poor but neither Cardinal Becciu’s brother nor the local priest involved in the charity agreed to answer questions nor appear in court.

Becciu was also found to have hired a glamorous self-described security analyst, Cecilia Marogna, as part of a murky plan to gain funds, supposedly to help negotiate freedom for a nun kidnapped in Mali. Marogna, 46, also from Sardinia, was paid 575,000 euros by the Secretariat of State between 2018 and 2019, money paid into company she had set up in Slovenia as well as a large cash payment.

Italian police reported however that Marogna had spent most of the money on luxury handbags and clothes and days at expensive health spas. She is convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to three and nine months prison.

Cardinal Becciu and his defence team constructed much of their argument around the contention that Pope Francis knew about the London deal, including its convoluted broker deals, and had both supported and approved the acquisition.

Becciu also insisted that Francis knew and approved of his arrangements with Cecilia Marogna to free the Columbian nun kidnapped in Mali in 2017 and the Tribunal heard that he secretly taped a conversation of himself speaking with the Pope about the arrangement, ostensibly for later use a threat or blackmail. The Pope is heard on tape to be relatively sympathetic in the call but in letters sent later in reply to Becciu’s call for help, he wrote he “cannot comply with your request”.

A tribunal verdict on a separate lawsuit for unfair dismissal filed by the former Vatican Auditor General, Libero Milone, and his late deputy, Ferruccio Panicco, has yet to be delivered.

Milone, the London-educated former chairman of the global accountancy firm, Deloitte worked closely with Cardinal Pell in his campaign for reform and had uncovered mounting evidence of financial irregularities in the Vatican’s investment strategies before being suddenly removed from office amid accusations of spying.

These included issues around the acquisition of the controversial London property which later led to the later discovery of a plethora of investments and loans around the world which had been hidden from financial oversight and contravened Vatican regulations.

The sacking of the two men unfolded in mysterious circumstances and the Tribunal heard that its timing coincided closely with Cardinal Pell’s return to Australia to defend himself against historic charges of sex abuse charges.