VATICAN CITY (AP) — A Vatican appeals tribunal put an end to prosecutors’ efforts to salvage their claims of massive fraud in the Holy See’s “Trial of the Century,” in which a once-powerful cardinal and nine others were accused of fleecing tens of millions of euros from the church before being acquitted on many charges.
The tribunal declared inadmissable the prosecutor’s requests to overturn acquittals on dozens of charges, saying they had failed to provide specific reasons for their appeal within
the right timeframe.
The court agreed with the defense that prosecutors had cut and pasted the same arguments they used in lower courts to argue for convictions on appeal.
“It’s a good sign, but there’s still a ways to go,” said star defendant Cardinal Angelo Becciu.
Becciu was convicted along with eight other people in December 2023 of embezzlement and other finance-related charges stemming from the Holy See’s bungled 350 million euro ($410 million) investment in a property on London's Sloane Avenue.
The trial court convicted them on some charges, while largely rejecting prosecutors' overarching thesis of a grand plot to defraud the Holy See and acquitting the defendants of many of the dozens of charges against them.
In the Vatican, as in Italy, both acquittals and convictions can be appealed. In this case, prosecutors had appealed the acquittals, while the defense appealed the convictions.
But on Thursday the appeals tribunal president, Archbishop Alejandro Arellano Cedillo, declared the prosecutors' appeal inadmissible. The ruling was a major victory for the defense and an embarrassing loss for prosecutors.
“It’s no longer the trial of the century,” said Mario Zanchetti, defense lawyer for Italian broker Gianluigi Torzi.
Defense lawyers said they would now work to reduce or overturn the convictions.
“The fanciful accusation of fraud on Sloane Avenue has been definitively buried,” said lawyers Massimo Bassi and Cataldo Intrieri, who represents the Vatican official Fabrizio Tirabassi.
Prosecutors declined to comment after the ruling. During the hearing they insisted that their appeal was valid and that the defense motion to throw it out was unfounded.
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