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The Vatican is being sued within the Excessive Court docket in London by a financier who claims he was unfairly convicted by the Holy See over a UK property deal on which it misplaced greater than £100mn.
Legal professionals appearing for Raffaele Mincione argued on Wednesday that Vatican authorities had made “incoherent and confused” allegations in opposition to the businessman, who was convicted of embezzlement and money-laundering by the Vatican state court docket and sentenced to 5 and a half years in jail for his function within the ill-fated transaction. Nonetheless, Mincione has by no means served jail time and has been based mostly in London.
In a bid to clear his identify, Mincione is looking for a declaration from the London court docket that he acted “in good religion” in his dealings with the Vatican. The case — which is predicted to function testimony from Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, one of many Vatican’s most senior leaders on the time of the vexed property deal — will think about Mincione’s prosecution by the Holy See court docket in proceedings since criticised as being arcane and unfair.
The civil trial in England stems from an funding the Holy See made in a former Harrods warehouse in Chelsea, one of many wealthiest areas of London. The Vatican misplaced greater than £100mn in 2022 when it offered the property to personal fairness group Bain Capital.
The Holy See spent greater than €350mn to accumulate the property between 2014 and 2018, and the loss led to a broad evaluate of the way in which by which the Catholic Church handles its funds.
Mincione was one among seven defendants — together with one of many Vatican’s strongest former officers, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu — convicted in December by the Vatican court docket within the landmark case for his or her roles within the controversial property deal.
The high-profile proceedings — seen as a part of Pope Francis’s try to scrub up the church’s notoriously scandal-tainted funds — have been dubbed by Italian media because the “Vatican’s trial of the century” because it was the primary time that such a high-ranking church official, or their monetary advisers, had been dropped at court docket for alleged wrongdoing.
Although a extremely revered former Italian prosecutor presided over the trial because the chief decide, each the defence and unbiased authorized students questioned the credibility and equity of the Vatican court docket’s proceedings, which have been additionally marked by a number of rule adjustments over the course of the investigation.
The London lawsuit was initially filed in 2020 previous to the Vatican trial and whereas the investigation into the deal was nonetheless below manner.
In written arguments, Mincione’s barrister, Charles Samek KC, stated the Vatican had made an “incoherent and confused allegation of conspiracy” and that its claims lacked “factual foundation”.
Mincione, who is because of testify on Thursday, has beforehand argued that the Vatican was conscious of the dangers and that it had misplaced cash due to its personal poor selections.
He has stated the property’s worth was justified by unbiased auditors and third-party consultants, and denies any wrongdoing.
Defending the Vatican in opposition to the declare, Charles Hollander KC stated Mincione seen the transaction as a manner of “extracting cash” from the Vatican.
“That concerned a fraud on it, and misrepresentations made by Mr Mincione,” Hollander stated in written arguments. “The occasions with which the Vatican court docket have been involved contain deep-seated corruption, fraud and embezzlement over a interval of years.”
He added that the Vatican court docket “had the advantage of listening to from fairly effectively all related events . . . reaching conclusions spanning a prolonged time period based mostly on the proof earlier than it”.
The Vatican has beforehand invoked the precept of sovereign immunity to keep away from taking part in international court docket proceedings, together with prosecutions for monetary scandals in Italy within the Eighties and youngster intercourse abuse instances in varied international locations in more moderen years.
The Vatican publicly defended the integrity of its personal court docket proceedings after the decision in December, insisting that the the advanced monetary case — by which among the accused have been cleared of some, or all wrongdoing — had been carried out “with full respect for the rights of the defendants”.
