VATICAN CITY — The prosecutor at a Vatican corruption trial linked to a botched London actual property deal requested a courtroom on Wednesday to convict Cardinal Angelo Becciu and sentence the previous Holy See energy dealer to seven years and three months in jail.
Prosecutor Alessandro Diddi made the request on the finish of his summing up on the trial, which started two years in the past this month and the place Becciu, 75, is certainly one of 10 defendants.
All of them have denied any wrongdoing.
The courtroom’s determination is predicted on the finish of yr after a summer time break and extra hearings involving these searching for damages, such because the Vatican financial institution.
The trial revolves largely across the difficult buy of a constructing in London by the Secretariat of State, the place Becciu as soon as held the quantity two place.
Pope Francis fired Becciu, the highest-ranking Vatican official to ever face a trial, from one other senior clerical publish in 2020 for alleged nepotism. That accusation surfaced usually on the trial and Becciu denied that as properly.
In a press release launched earlier than the prosecution made its requests, Becciu mentioned he was “pained” by the best way Diddi had painted him as a sinister character.
“I have always worked for the good of the Church and I have spent my whole life for her,” Becciu mentioned. “I am innocent not only because not only have I never stolen a cent, nor have I enriched myself or members of my family.”
At the time of Becciu’s firing, he was additionally stripped of what the Vatican then mentioned had been his “rights associated with being a cardinal.”
This included the best to enter a secret conclave to elect the subsequent pope after Francis’s demise or resignation.
Before he was fired, Becciu was probably the most highly effective males within the Vatican. He was deputy secretary of state from 2011-2018 after which head of the Vatican division that research potential candidates for sainthood from 2018 to his dismissal in 2020.
The others on trial embody a number of Vatican staff in addition to outdoors brokers who the Vatican has accused of extortion. — Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
