The Vatican will try 10 defendants in the case related to the financial investments of the Secretariat of State in London. This was announced Saturday, July 3, 2021, in the following statement from the Vatican press office.

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By decree issued today, the President of the Vatican Tribunal has ordered the summons to trial of the defendants in the case related to the financial investments of the Secretariat of State in London. The trial will begin at the hearing on 27 July next.

The request for the summons for trial was submitted in recent days by the Office of the Promoter of Justice, in the persons of the Promoter Gian Piero Milano, the Deputy Alessandro Diddi and the Applicant Gianluca Perone, and regards ecclesiastical and lay personnel of the Secretariat of State and senior figures of the then Financial Intelligence Authority, as well as external figures active in the world of international finance.

They are:

– René Brülhart, who is accused of abuse of office;

– Msgr. Mauro Carlino, who is accused of extortion and abuse of office;

– Enrico Crasso, who is accused of embezzlement, corruption, extortion, money laundering and self-laundering, fraud, abuse of office, forgery of a public deed committed by a private individual and forgery in a private document;

– Tommaso Di Ruzza, who is accused of embezzlement, abuse of office and breach of confidentiality;

– Cecilia Marogna, who is accused of embezzlement;

– Raffaele Mincione, who is accused of embezzlement, fraud, abuse of office, embezzlement and self-laundering;

– Nicola Squillace, who is accused of fraud, embezzlement, money laundering and self-laundering;

– Fabrizio Tirabassi, who is accused of corruption, extortion, embezzlement, fraud and abuse of office;

– Gianluigi Torzi, who is accused of extortion, embezzlement, fraud, embezzlement, money laundering and self-laundering;

and against the companies:

– HP Finance LLC, referable to Enrico Crasso, to whom the indictment alleges the crime of fraud;

– Logsic Humanitarne Dejavnosti, D.O.O., attributable to Cecilia Marogna, accused of embezzlement;

– Prestige Family Office SA, attributable to Enrico Crasso, who is accused of fraud;

– Sogenel Capital Investment, which can be traced back to Enrico Crasso, to which the indictment alleges the crime of fraud.

Some of the aforementioned offences are also alleged to have been committed “in complicity”.

The investigations, launched in July 2019 following a complaint by the Institute for the Works of Religion and the Office of the Auditor General, involved full collaboration between the Office of the Promoter and the Judicial Police Section of the Gendarmerie Corps. The investigations were also carried out in close and fruitful cooperation with the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Rome and the Economic and Financial Police Unit – G.I.C.E.F. of the Guardia di Finanza of Rome. The cooperation of the Public Prosecutor’s Offices of Milan, Bari, Trento, Cagliari and Sassari and their respective judicial police sections was also appreciated.

Elements also emerged against Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, who is being prosecuted, pursuant to the law, for the crimes of embezzlement and abuse of office, also in collaboration, as well as subornation.

The investigations, carried out also with rogatory commissions in several other foreign countries (United Arab Emirates, Great Britain, Jersey, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Switzerland), have brought to light a vast network of relationships with operators in the financial markets that have generated substantial losses for the Vatican finances, having also drawn on the resources intended for the personal charitable works of the Holy Father.

The judicial initiative is directly related to the indications and reforms of His Holiness Pope Francis, in the work of transparency and rehabilitation of Vatican finances; work that, according to the accusation, was countered by speculative illegal activities and detrimental to reputation in the terms indicated in the request for trial.

Vatican City, 3 July 2021