Vatican prosecutors suffer embarrassing loss as tribunal says their appeal is inadmissible

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican appeals tribunal put an end Thursday 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.

The tribunal declared the prosecutor’s appeal in the case was inadmissible, meaning the court refused to admit prosecutors’ requests to overturn acquittals on more than two-dozen charges. The court said prosecutors had failed on a basic procedural point: to provide specific reasons for their appeal within the right timeframe.

The decision, a stunning and embarrassing blow to prosecutors, means the appeals process goes forward but only for the defense efforts to overturn the 2023 convictions or reduce the sentences.

“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 had been a cornerstone of Pope Francis’ efforts to crack down on financial misconduct in the Holy See. But it was beset by grave shortcomings from the start, with defense complaints that their clients couldn’t get a fair trial in an absolute monarchy where Francis had intervened on behalf of prosecutors repeatedly.

The trial court convicted the defendants on some charges, but largely rejected prosecutors’ overarching thesis of a grand plot to defraud the Holy See.

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.

On Thursday at the end of the first week of hearings, the appeals tribunal president, Archbishop Alejandro Arellano Cedillo, sided with the defense and declared the prosecutors’ appeal inadmissible. The court agreed that prosecutors had merely cut and pasted the same arguments they used in the lower court rather than articulate a reasoned appeal.

The ruling was a major victory for the defense and an embarrassing loss for prosecutors, who sat stone-faced in the frescoed courtroom as the ordinance was read out.

“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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