Cardinal convicted of embezzlement in Vatican financial trial, sentenced to five-and-a-half years

A Vatican tribunal has convicted a cardinal of embezzlement and sentenced him to five-and-a-half years in prison.

Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the first cardinal ever prosecuted by the Vatican criminal court, was absolved of several other charges and nine other defendants received a combination of guilty verdicts and acquittals among the nearly 50 charges brought against them during a two-and-a-half year trial.

The sentence was just one of several verdicts handed down in a complicated financial trial that aired the city state’s dirty laundry and tested its justice system.

Becciu’s lawyer, Fabrizio Viglione, said he respected the sentence but would appeal.

Prosecutor Alessandro Diddi said the outcome “showed we were correct.”

The trial focused on the Vatican secretariat of state’s 350 million euro investment in developing a former Harrod’s warehouse into luxury apartments.

Prosecutors alleged Vatican monsignors and brokers fleeced the Holy See of tens of millions of euros in fees and commissions and then extorted the Holy See for 15 million euros to cede control of the building.

Becciu, the first-ever cardinal to be prosecuted in the Vatican’s criminal court, was accused of embezzlement-related charges in two tangents of the London deal and faced up to seven years in prison.

In the end, he was convicted of embezzlement stemming from the original investment of 200 million euros in a fund that bought into the London property, as well as for his 125,000 euro donation of Vatican money to a charity run by his brother in Sardinia.

He was also convicted of using Vatican money to pay an intelligence analyst who in turn was convicted of using the money for herself.

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