The defense attorneys did praise Judge Giuseppe Pignatone’s even-handedness and said they were able to present their arguments amply. But they lamented the Vatican’s outdated procedural norms gave prosecutors enormous leeway to withhold evidence and otherwise pursue their investigation nearly unimpeded.
Andrea Tornielli, the Vatican’s editorial director, said the verdicts showed the defense had ample space to present their case and that the defense rights were respected.
“The outcome of this trial tells us that the judges of the tribunal, as is right, acted with full independence based on documentary proofs and witnesses, not pre-confectioned theories,” he wrote in an editorial in Vatican News.
Prosecutors had sought prison terms from three to 13 years and damages of over 400 million euros to try to recover the estimated 200 million euros they say the Holy See lost in the bad deals.
In the end, the tribunal acquitted many of the suspects of many of the biggest charges, including fraud, corruption and money-laundering, determining in many cases that the crimes simply didn’t exist.
But it nevertheless ordered the confiscation of 166 million euros from them and payment of civil damages to Vatican offices of 200 million euros. One defendant, Becciu’s former secretary Monsignor Mauro Carlino, was acquitted entirely.
The trial was initially seen as a sign of Francis’ financial reforms and willingness to crack down on alleged financial misdeeds in the Vatican. But it had something of a reputational boomerang for the Holy See, with revelations of vendettas, espionage and even ransom payments to Islamic militants.
Much of the London case rested on the passage of the property from one London broker, Raffaele Mincione, to another in late 2018. Prosecutors allege the second broker, Gianluigi Torzi, hoodwinked the Vatican by maneuvering to secure full control of the building that he relinquished only when the Vatican paid him off 15 million euros.
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