‘Trial of the century’ resumes after prosecutors suffer embarrassing setbacks on appeal

Cardinal Angelo Becciu attends the consistory inside St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, August 2022 [AP Photo]

The appeals phase of the Vatican’s “trial of the century” resumed yesterday after a pair of setbacks for the pope’s prosecutors that could have big repercussions on the outcome of the troubled case.

The case concerns the once-powerful Cardinal Angelo Becciu and eight other defendants, who were convicted of a handful of financial crimes in 2023, after a sprawling two-year trial.

However, the Vatican’s high Court of Cassation recently upheld a lower court’s decision to throw out the prosecutors’ appeal entirely. That means the defendants can only expect to see their verdicts and sentences improved if not overturned.

On the same day as the Cassation ruling, the Vatican’s chief prosecutor, Alessandro Diddi, also dropped months of objections and abruptly resigned from the case, rather than face the possibility that the Cassation court would order him removed.

At issue is Diddi’s role in a now-infamous set of WhatsApp chats that have thrown the credibility of the entire trial into question. The chats, which document a yearslong, behind-the-scenes effort to target Becciu, suggest questionable conduct by Vatican police, Vatican prosecutors and Pope Francis himself.

Several defense attorneys had argued that the chats showed Diddi was hardly impartial in his handling of evidence and witnesses and was unfit to continue in his role.

Diddi rejected their arguments as “unfounded” and bitterly complained to the Cassation’s cardinal judges. But he recused himself regardless “to prevent insinuations and falsehoods about me from being exploited to damage and prejudice the process of ascertaining the truth and affirming justice.”

Had the Cassation actually ruled against Diddi and found that his role was incompatible, the entire case could have resulted in a mistrial or a declaration of nullity. As it is, the appeals court has ruled that Diddi’s prosecutorial activities were valid, even if he subsequently recused himself.

London property and more

The original trial opened in 2021 with its main focus the Vatican’s investment of 350 million euros ($413 million) in a London property. Prosecutors alleged brokers and Vatican monsignors fleeced the Holy See of tens of millions of euros in fees and commissions to acquire the property, and then extorted the Holy See for 15 million euros ($16.5 million) to cede control of it.

The original investigation spawned two main tangents involving Becciu, a once-powerful cardinal, who was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to 5½ years in prison. The tribunal convicted eight other defendants of embezzlement, abuse of office, fraud and other charges, but acquitted them on many counts.

All the defendants maintained their innocence and appealed. Prosecutors also appealed, since the tribunal largely threw out their overarching theory of a grand conspiracy to defraud the Holy See and instead convicted the defendants of a handful of serious but secondary charges.

Diddi had seen the appeals as an opportunity to prosecute his initial case again. In filing the appeal, he merely attached his original request for convictions. But the appeals court threw that out on the grounds that it lacked the “specificity” required by law in an appeals motion.

It was an embarrassing procedural error that the Cassation court, in its Jan. 9 ruling, refused to forgive.

Pope’s role

The appeals now proceeds on other defense arguments, with a next line of attack focusing on Francis’ role in the investigation. During the trial, defense attorneys had argued their clients couldn’t receive a fair trial in an absolute monarchy where the pope wields supreme legislative, executive and judicial power, and Francis used those powers during the investigation.

At issue are four secret executive decrees Francis signed in 2019 and 2020, during the early days of the investigation, that gave Vatican prosecutors wide-ranging powers, including the unchecked use of wiretapping and the right to deviate from existing laws.

The decrees only came to light right before trial and were never officially published. They provided no rationale or time frame for the surveillance, nor oversight of the wiretapping by an independent judge, and were passed specifically for this investigation.

Legal scholars have said the secrecy of the laws and their ad hoc nature violated a basic tenet of the right to a fair trial requiring the “equality of arms” between defense and prosecution. In this case, the defense was completely unaware of the prosecution’s new investigative powers. Even Vatican legal officials have privately conceded that Francis’ failure to publish the decrees was deeply problematic.

Diddi had argued that Francis’ decrees provided unspecified “guarantees” for the suspects, and the tribunal originally rejected the defense motions arguing they violated the defendants’ fundamental right to a fair trial. In a somewhat convoluted decision, the judges ruled that no violation of the principle of legality had occurred since Francis had made the laws.

Under the church’s canon law, the pope can’t be judged by anyone but God. But the pope also can’t promulgate laws that violate divine law, setting up a potential dilemma if the court were to ultimately find that Francis’ decrees violated the defendants’ fundamental rights.

The Vatican has insisted that the defendants all received a fair trial. NICOLE WINFIELD, VATICAN CITY, MDT/AP