VATICAN CITY (AP) — The textual content message to the Vatican’s monsignor provided forgiveness, together with a risk: “I know all about you … and I keep everything in my archives,” it stated. “I apologize, Perlasca, but remember, you owe me a favor.”
The information was certainly one of greater than 100 newly uncovered WhatsApp texts and different correspondence filed in proof on the Vatican courthouse final week that shattered a monetary crimes trial over the Holy See’s loss-making funding in a London property went.
The texts have solid doubt on the credibility of a key suspect-turned-prosecutor’s witness and raised questions concerning the integrity of the investigation into the London deal and different transactions.
Along with proof {that a} cardinal was secretly recording Pope Francis, they confirmed {that a} trial initially geared toward highlighting Francis’ monetary reforms has develop into a Pandora’s field of unintended revelations about vendettas and intrigues on the Vatican.
The start line of the trial earlier than the city-state’s felony courtroom was the 350 million euro funding by the Holy See to transform a former warehouse of the Harrods division retailer into luxurious residences.
Prosecutors have indicted 10 individuals within the case, alleging Vatican monsignors and brokers fleeced the Holy See tens of hundreds of thousands of euros in charges and commissions after which extorted 15 million euros from the Holy See to achieve full management of the property.
Monsignor Alberto Perlasca was initially among the many important suspects. As a Vatican official managing the Secretariat of State’s €600 million asset portfolio, he was carefully concerned in the actual property deal.
But Perlasca modified his story in August 2020 and commenced working with prosecutors, blaming his deputy and his superior, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, then No. 2 within the Secretariat of State, for the London funding and different questionable bills.
Both the deputy and Becciu are on trial. Perlasca just isn’t, and his statements to prosecutors turned a supply of leads that shaped the premise of a number of costs within the indictment.
When Perlasca testified for the prosecution final week, a few of his claims collapsed beneath protection questioning. Judge Giuseppe Pignatone gave Perlasca till mid-week to recollect who helped him write his first complete memo on August 31, 2020.
And then a bomb went off, courtesy of the textual content messages that the prosecutor was compelled to submit as proof after receiving them. They recommended that Perlasca wrote the memo implicated by his boss after receiving threats and recommendation from a girl who had an ax to grind towards Becciu.
PR specialist Francesca Chaouqui was beforehand a member of a papal fee tasked with investigating the Vatican’s huge and murky funds. She is thought in Vatican circles for her position within the 2015-2016 “Vatileaks” scandal, when she was discovered responsible of conspiring to leak confidential Vatican paperwork to journalists and given a 10-month suspended sentence.
According to the texts, Chaouqui harbored a grudge towards Becciu, whom she accused of allegedly supporting her prosecution. She apparently noticed the London property agency’s investigation as an opportunity to settle scores and implicate Becciu in alleged wrongdoing she uncovered throughout her fee days.
“I knew that sooner or later the moment would come and I would send you this message,” Chaouqui wrote to Perlasca on May 12, 2020. “Because the Lord will not allow the good to be humiliated without reparation. My apologies, Perlasca, but remember, you owe me a favor.”
Chaouqui did not say what she wished. But different information revealed in courtroom suggests she had satisfied a good friend and confidant of the Perlasca household, Genoveffa Ciferri, that she may assist Perlasca keep away from prosecution if he adopted Chaouqui’s recommendation.
According to Ciferri’s texts, the flowery scheme allegedly unfolded as follows: Ciferri believed Chaouqui when she boasted that she was working hand-in-hand with Vatican prosecutors, gendarmes, and the Pope on the felony investigation. Ciferri wished to assist Perlasca and anonymously gave him Chaouqui’s recommendation.
Chaouqui then organized a dinner at a restaurant in Rome, the place Perlasca tried to extract incriminating data from Becciu. Perlasca was led to consider that Vatican prosecutors had bugged the desk and had been recording their dialog, though no recording was made. He offered them with an in depth memo after the meal on September 6, 2020.
The dinner occurred 18 days earlier than Francis Becciu was fired and stripped of his rights as a cardinal, based mostly on data he allegedly obtained about Beccius’ alleged monetary misconduct.
Ciferri confessed the total story to prosecutor Alessandro Diddi in a Nov. 26 textual content, during which she stated she had schemed with Chaouqui in hopes of saving Perlasca from turning into a felony suspect. Ciferri forwarded Diddi 126 textual content messages she exchanged with Chaouqui and stated Chaouqui helped draft the August 2020 memo during which Perlasca hit on the cardinal.
The implications of Chaouqui’s alleged interference had been clear to these within the courtroom: Perlasca, a key prosecution witness, might have been persuaded by somebody with a not-so-disguised intent to make probably false statements about Becciu and others. In addition, Chaouqui boasted that he was working carefully with investigators on the case.
Beccius’ lawyer Fabio Viglione denounced the “surreal” machinations that led to his consumer’s indictment, saying Perlasca had been manipulated “to the detriment of the truth, the authenticity of the investigation and the integrity of His Eminence”.
Cataldo Intrieri, the lawyer for Perlasca’s deputy Fabrizio Tirabassi, stated the revelations justified the keep of the trial and the opening of recent felony investigations into allegations of fraud, threats and obstruction. “Regardless of this, there are implications for the facts that are the subject of this trial,” Intrieri stated.
Judge Pignatone dismissed the protection’s calls for that the trial be stayed, saying the trial was based mostly extra on London deal paperwork than Perlasca’s testimony. But he deliberate courtroom hearings for Ciferri and Chaouqui.
When reached by The Associated Press, Chaouqui declined to remark earlier than her courtroom testimony.
Diddi defended the investigation, emphatically denied having something to do with Chaouqui earlier than being questioned in July and introduced that he had opened a brand new investigation into attainable false testimony and different potential crimes based mostly on the texts he obtained from obtained Ciferri. He provided to surrender his mobile phone to point out he had nothing to do with Chaouqui.
“If someone is bragging about having knowledge (of the investigation), I have to investigate,” he stated.
Some protection attorneys additionally privately complained that in February 2021, Diddi had proof of Chaouqui’s alleged involvement in Perlasca, however didn’t inform the protection, which is a part of broader protection complaints concerning the idiosyncrasies of the Vatican authorized system. Diddi admitted final week that Ciferri known as him on February 4, 2021 and talked about Chaouqui’s title.
Diddi additionally heard from Perlasca on March 1, 2022, when the monsignor filed a proper criticism alleging that Chaouqui had threatened him and claiming to be cooperating with prosecutors. The written criticism was solely confirmed final week. Defense attorneys stated it was their first hunch that Perlasca could possibly be a compromised prosecution witness.
“She sent me threatening messages over the phone, saying I was in her hands and that only she could save me from certain prisons, and made it clear that she could influence investigators,” Perlasca wrote in his criticism.
Chaouqui was solely in touch with Perlasca on November 26. She texted him after his first courtroom appearances and recommended they meet earlier than he went again to the witness stand.
“My interest, and I think yours too, is that my support not appear in court because it would be difficult to explain first of all the consequences it had,” she wrote.
