The defence of those involved insists that not all the evidence has been handed over.
Newsroom (18/11/2021 20:30, Gaudium Press) The trial of Cardinal Becciu and other former Vatican officials and associated financiers had its fourth hearing yesterday. However, of the 10 initially involved in this case, only six now remain: Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, Tommaso Di Ruzza, Enrico Crasso, Gianluigi Torzi, Cecilia Marogna, René Brullhart (four had their positions excluded).
The defence of the accused focused their arguments on what was already expected: that they were not provided with all the evidence against their clients, as had been ordered by the president of the Vatican Tribunal, Pignatone.
The evidence: 115 hours of recorded conversations, contained on 53 DVDs. That is, one DVD with the wiretaps and the other 52 with the audio and video files of the five interrogations of Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, a former official of the Secretariat of State and the main witness against the accused.
Defence lawyers also complained about the short time to review such extensive material and that the recordings of the statements, including those of Monsignor Perlasca, were not complete. Prosecutors contested that these cuts were made because they indicated new lines of investigation, which should remain under secrecy; an argument – of course – that did not convince the defence, which had only 15 days to examine the material, which was to be held at the Vatican Gendarmerie and no copies could be made .
“We have the right to see the evidence, it is not a favour they are doing us,” underlined Fabio Viglione, Cardinal Becciu’s lawyer. “The recordings have ‘omissions’ and are ‘mutilated’,” he pointed out. And, as a result, he requested the nullity of the trial.
Allusion to the Pope
But perhaps what drew the most attention from all the testimony was the reproduction of one of Msgr. Perlasca’s interrogations, where the prosecutor of the trial told him, “Msgr. [Perlasca], this has nothing to do! Before doing what we are doing, we turned to the Holy Father and asked him what had happened.” Then Enrico Crasso’s defence lawyer Luigi Panella said, “They heard the Holy Father as a witness,” “but there is no statement by the Holy Father in the process.”
“There is a direct intervention of the Pope in the events of the trial, heard as a person informed of the facts. It is like an implicit rescript, it is unheard of,” Panella continued.
The prosecutor, Alessandro Diddi, replied that on this matter the Pope had not been heard, “but only referred to what he himself said in the press conference on the plane on his apostolic trip to Thailand, as everyone can verify.”
At the end of the hearing, Judge Pignatone stated that the Vatican Tribunal wishes to reserve the right to “consider the complex issues raised.” However, he added that “we will not begin to examine the issues in this trial until the defence has full knowledge of the facts.”
The next hearing will be on December 1.
With information from Infocatolica.