(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 16.12.2023).- With the sentence issued today, after 86 hearings , the Court of First Instance of Vatican City State defined the first degree sentence of the trial against ten accused and four companies, which had as its object several events (different, although with profiles of objective and subjective connection, the main one which is known with reference to a building in London at 60 Sloane Avenue.
In regard to the latter, the Court confirmed the existence of a crime of embezzlement (article 168 of the Penal Code) regarding the illicit use, for violation of the dispositions on the administration of ecclesiastical property (and in particular of canon 1284 of the Code of Canon Law), of the sum of US$200,500, 000, approximately equivalent to a third of the Secretariat of State’s funds available at that moment. This sum was paid between 2013 and 2014, at the request of the then Substitute Monsignor Giovanni Angelo Becciu, for the subscription of shares of “Athena Capital Commodities,” a hedge fund referenceable to Dr Raffaele Mincione, with highly speculative characteristics, and which implied for the investor a high risk on capital without the possibility of controlling the management.
Therefore, the Court declared Monsignor Becciu and Raffaele Mincione guilty of the crime of embezzlement. They had been in direct contact with the Secretariat of State to obtain payment of the money even without the conditions being complied with, as well as Fabrizio Tirabassi, employee of the Office of Administration , and Enrico Crasso, in connivance with them.
In so far as the subsequent use of the said sum, which was allocated — among other things — to the purchase of the company that owns the Sloane Avenue building and numerous real estate investments, the Court declared Raffaele Mincione guilty of the crime of money laundering (article 421 – bis of the Penal Code).
However, it excluded the responsibility of Monsignor Becciu, Enrico Crasso and Fabrizio Tirabbasi, in relation to the other crimes of embezzlement that were being charged to them as the fact doesn’t exist, given that the Secretariat of State no longer had the money once it was paid to subscribe to the fund shares. Then Enrico Crasso was declared guilty of the crime of self-laundering (article 421 – bis of the Penal Code) in relation to the use of an important sum of over one million euros, which constituted the benefit of the crime of bribery between individuals committed in connivance with Mincione.
On the other hand, in relation to the repurchase by the Secretariat of State in 2018-2019, through a complex financial operation, of the companies that owned the mentioned building, the Court Decaled Gianluigi Torzi and Nicola Squillace guilty of the crime of aggravated fraud (article 413 of the Penal Code), and Torci also guilty of the crime of extorsion in connivance with Fabrizio Tirabassi (article 409 of the Penal Code), as well as the crime of self-laundering of the amount illicitly obtained.
Instead, Torzi, Tirabassi, Crasso and Mincione were exonerated as the fact of the crime of embezzlement did not exist, of which they were accused, in relation with the alleged overvaluing of the sale price. Tirabassi was also declared guilty of the crime of money laundering (article 421 – bis of the Penal Code) in relation with the possession of the sum of more than US$1,500,000 that the UBS paid him between 2004 and 2009. The Court considered that the reception of this sum by the accused constituted a crime of bribery, with respect to which, however, given the time that has elapsed, the criminal action has prescribed.
As regards Tommaso Di Ruzza and René Brulhart, Director General and President respectively of the A.I.F. (the Holy See’s Financial Information Authority), who intervened in the final phase of the purchase of the Sloane Avenue building, they were exonerated of the crimes of abuse of functions of which they were accused, and they were only declared guilty of the offenses covered in articles 178 and 180 of the Penal Code for omission of communication and for omission of communication of a suspicious operation to the Promoter of Justice.
Finally, in reference to the other two issues investigated, Monsignor Becciu and Cecilia Marogna were declared guilty, jointly and severally, of the crime foreseen in article 416-ter of the Penal Code in relation to the payment by the Secretariat of State, of sums that amounted to more than 570,000 euros, in favour of Marogna, through a company referenced to her, with the argument that it did not correspond to the truth, that the money was going to be used to help free a Colombian nun, victim of a kidnapping in Africa.
Archbishop Becciu was also declared guilty of embezzlement of funds (article 168 of the Penal Code) for having arranged on two occasions the deposit into an account in the name of Caritas-Diocese of Ozieri, of the total sum of 125,000 euros, allocated in reality to the SPES cooperative, of which his brother, Antonino Becciu was President. Although the final destiny of the sums was licit in itself, the Court considered that the disbursement of the funds by the Secretariat of State constituted, in this case, an illegal use of the same, constitutive of an embezzlement crime, in regard to the violation of article 176 of the Italian Penal Code, which sanctions private interest in acts of charge, including through third parties, in line, moreover, with those provided in canon 1298 of the Italian Civil Code, which prohibits the alienation of ecclesiastical public properties to relatives up to the fourth degree.
Instead, the accused Raffaele Mincione, Gianluigi Torzi, Fabrizio Tirabassi Giovanni Angelo Becciu, Nicola Squillace, Enrico Crasso, Tommaso Di Ruzza and René Brulhart were exonerated, with the formulas specified on the operative part of all the other crimes of which they were accused. Likewise, Monsignor Mauro Carlino was exonerated of all the crimes of which he was accused.
In conclusion, considering the continuation of the crimes imputed to each one of the accused, condemned, respectively, were:
- BRULHART, René and DI RUZZA Tommaso to the penalty of a fine of one thousand seven hundred fifty euros;
- CRASSO Enrico to the penalty of seven years of prison and a fine of ten thousand euros with perpetual disqualification for public office;
- MINCIONE Raffaele to the penalty of five years and six months of prison, a fine of eight thousand euros and perpetual disqualification for public office;
- BECCIU Giovanni Angelo to a penalty of five years and six months of prison, a fine of eight thousand euros and perpetual disqualification for public office;
- TIRABASSI Fabrizio to a penalty of seven years and six months of prison, ten thousand euros, and perpetual disqualification for public office;
- SQUILLACE Nicola, subject to the granting of the general mitigating circumstance — in abeyance — of one year and ten months of prison.
- TORZI Gianluigi to a penalty of six years in prison and a fine of six thousand euros, with perpetual disqualification for public officeand special vigilance during one year;
- MAROGNA Cecilia to a penalty of three years and nine months in prison with temporal disqualification for public office for the same period;
- LOGSIC HUMANITARNE DEJAVNOSTI D.O.O. to a fine of forty thousand euros and the prohibition of contracting with public authorities for two years;
Moreover, the Court ordered confiscation for equivalent amounts of the constitutive sums of the impugned infractions for a total of over 166,000.000 euros.
Finally, the defendants were jointly and severally ordered to pay for damages and harms in favour of the civil part, liquidated for a total amount of more than 200,000,000 euros.
