BishopAccountability.org

“Vatileaks 2” Trial: Pope Francis’ Folly

By Betty Clermont
Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody
July 17, 2016

https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2016/07/17/vatileaks-2-trial-pope-francis-folly/

The new pope enacted a law criminalizing leaks of detrimental information to the press. Nevertheless, two books were going to be published exposing pervasive corruption during Pope Francis’ pontificate. The pope had two of his employees arrested and then put on trial along with a third employee and the authors of the two books.

The result was months of free publicity for the books. Additionally, the public came to learn that no crime – not sodomizing children or fraud – is considered as grave as exposing the pope’s secrets. No physical evidence was produced proving the defendants’ guilt during the trial. Nevertheless, the prosecution recommended that the only woman among the five defendants receive the harshest penalty for “instigating” and “conspiring.”

Pope Francis enacted a law on July 13, 2013, criminalizing leaks of Vatican information, “an obvious response” to the 2012 scandal known as “Vatileaks.” Pilfered documents had exposed “petty turf wars, bureaucratic dysfunction and allegations of corruption and homosexual liaisons.” The crime of revealing damaging information had never existed before in the Vatican.

On October 31, 2015, Msgr. Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda (54), secretary for the Prefecture of Economic Affairs, and Francesca Chaouqui (33) were summoned to the Vatican for questioning and then arrested with Pope Francis’ “personal approval” regarding “the unauthorized removal and sharing of confidential documents.”

The Spaniard, Vallejo Balda, had been secretary of a temporary commission, already dissolved, established by the pope to recommend changes to the Vatican’s financial administration. Chaouqui, an Italian laywoman formerly employed in the Rome office of Ernst & Young, had been a member of the same commission. Chaouqui was released after a couple of days because “there were no evident reasons to keep her in custody, and also in view of her cooperation with the investigation.” Vallejo Balda was imprisoned in a Vatican jail cell.

Chaouqui’s attorney, Giulia Bongiorno, later pointed out the Vatican’s “alleged violations of Chaouqui’s due process rights by interrogating her without an attorney.”

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Emiliano Fittipaldi’s Avarice: Papers that Reveal Wealth, Scandals and Secrets in the Church of Francis.and Gianluigi Nuzzi’s Merchants in the Temple were released on November 5. “Fraud worth millions, the machinations of the Vatican Bank, the true extent of the pope’s treasury” and “offerings of the faithful withheld from charity,  theft and trade scams” during the reign of Pope Francis were disclosed.

“The greatest bombshell is that the Vatican is still working as a profitable merchant bank – the Church of the poor, strongly wanted by Pope Francis, is far away from being created,” Fittipaldi said.

Fittipaldi wrote that the Vatican Bank had still not turned over to the Bank of Italy (the country’s central bank) the list of Italian account holders avoiding taxes despite promises to do so. “The Vatican Bank hasn’t been cleaned up like we thought … There are [bank accounts] of Italian entrepreneurs under investigation by Italian authorities still hiding inside,” Fittipaldi sated.

Based on a leaked auditor’s report, Fittipaldi wrote that “the Vatican earns 60 million euro a year selling gas, cigarettes and other products at below-Italian-market prices. They should be available only to the city-state’s citizens [about 450], yet more than 40,000 Italians are said to have cards giving them access to the shops inside the Vatican” depriving Italy of tax revenue.

An audit also revealed hundreds of people misappropriating the Vatican’s tax-free status to resell cheap gasoline and cigarettes at great profit. An audit of the Vatican museums and pharmacy showed serious discrepancies – amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars – between what appeared on the books and what was actually in storehouses, suggesting either systematic theft or fraud.

Per Fittipaldi, APSA (the Vatican agency managing its commercial properties and investments) listed assets of 998 million euro including an investment portfolio worth over 475 million euro as of 2013. Cardinal Domenico Calcagno, the current president of APSA, “has made a retreat in a land of the Holy See in the open, by opening a shell company to his distant relatives. The Vatican has also invested in shares of Exxon and Dow Chemical,” corporations that pollute and poison.  On May 12, the Vatican Bank president confirmed that the bank’s “investments in fossil fuel companies”  have continued to the present despite Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment.

Both books “describe how only a small portion of the cash” donated by Catholics around the world for the pope’s charities “makes it to those who need it most.” According Nuzzi, “rather than going to aid the poor, most of the cash is used to pay salaries and plug deficits at the Holy See.”

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The trial began on November 24, 2015. Pope Francis said he gave the court the “concrete charges” against the five defendants. Vallejo Balda, Chaouqui, and Vallejo Balda’s assistant, Nicola Maio, were “accused of forming a criminal organization and of procuring and leaking confidential documents.” Nuzzi and Fittipaldi were “accused of publishing those documents and of soliciting and exercising pressure, above all on Vallejo Balda, to obtain the documents and other reserved information.”

All were prohibited from having their own lawyers and were forced to use Vatican-appointed defense attorneys.

The International Press Institute, the NGO Ossigeno per l’Informazione (Oxygen for information), Italy’s National Order of Journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Foreign Press Association and AIGAV, the association of reporters accredited to the Vatican, condemned the journalists’ indictments.

Pope Francis had said, “I would have liked to finish [the trial] before December 8 for the [start of] the Year of Mercy.”  But on “the day before the inauguration of the Jubilee,” Chaouqui’s lawyer “presented two objections relating to the lack of jurisdiction of the Vatican Tribunal. Firstly, the crime the accused are charged with was apparently committed on Italian territory” and “secondly because [Maio] appealed for political refugee status in Italy and should therefore be tried in Italy.” The objections were rejected because Pope Francis’ law “applies to all Vatican staff” regardless of their location. Nuzzi and Fittipaldi also contested the Vatican’s lack of jurisdiction in Italy to no avail.

The judiciary did agree on December 7 “to admit the requests for further witnesses presented by various counsels for the defense” including Cardinal Santos Abril y Castello and Archbishop Krajewski, head of the pope’s charities. “The decision raises the prospect of the Church’s dirty linen being laundered in public.”

Fittipaldi revealed that the annual collection from the world’s Catholics for the pope’s charities totaled 378 million euro in 2013. That Pope Francis makes only 20 percent  of that available for the poor was disclosed by Nuzzi and confirmed by the pope’s “chief of staff,” Archbishop Becciu.

Fittipaldi also revealed that there are several accounts in the Vatican Bank designated for charity  which give away nothing or very little. In 2013 and 2014, the charity fund available to the Vatican Bank’s Commission of Cardinals – led by Cardinal Santos Abril y Castelló, appointed by Pope Francis and “a close friend” – gave nothing despite a “net surplus” of €425,000.

Testimony by Krajewski and/or Abril y Castelló could have been damaging. The next day, the Vatican announced the trial was adjourned and “a date is yet to be set” for it to be resumed.

In a statement to Vatican Radio on December 8 the Counsellor General of the Vatican City State said “that what we have at the moment is just a presumed crime” and “that we do not yet know for sure what happened.”

During the interim, Vallejo Balda was moved from the jail cell to house arrest two days before Christmas and then moved back to a jail cell on March 14 because he had “violated a ban on communicating with the outside world.”

Chaouqui’s own attorney, Bongiorno, noted in January that the Vatican had failed “to put forward any documentary evidence against her client.”

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The trial resumed on March 14, 2016, with Vallejo Balda confessing “to delivering documents” to Nuzzi and Fittipaldi. But Fittipaldi “was already informed on some issues” and Nuzzi – to whom he had given 85 passwords in order to access confidential documents – “had independent access to the same documents.” The priest accused Chaouqui of “manipulating and controlling” him with “threats” and “pressures.”

The next day, the Vallejo Balda denied that the journalists had “solicited” information or “exercised pressure.”

On April 6, Chaouqui testified, “Never, never. I can assure you that no reserved documents ever passed from my hands.”  Subsequently, Maio also denied passing information and Nuzzi denied pressuring Vallejo Balda.

The Vatican announced on May 16 that Abril y Castelló and Krajewski would not be called to testify.

A Vatican policeman testified on May 24 that when she was first interrogated the previous October, Chaouqui had admitted sending documents to Nuzzi. “Chaouqui’s [Vatican] lawyer argued that while she did admit sending documents, she did not mention passing along ‘secret’ or ‘private’ documents in her admission.”

The rest of the trial, with several delays, centered on questioning other Vatican employees by the prosecution regarding details of working for the same commission and how electronic devices were used.

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On July 4, the Promoter of Justice (prosecutor) called for imprisonment of the three employees for their “criminal association … regarding the disclosure of information and documents.” He recommended three years, one month for Vallejo Balda; for Maio “considering his limited role” one year, nine months. Nuzzi received a recommendation for a “one-year prison sentence with the possibility of suspension” and Fittipaldi was acquitted. For Chaouqui, as “the instigator” of the crimes committed and “responsible” for the conspiracy, three years and nine months – the harshest sentence.

The prosecutor had presented no physical evidence against the defendants during the trial. Only the monsignor had confessed to any wrongdoing while blaming the laywoman for “manipulating and controlling” him with “threats” and “pressures.” As to Chaoqui’s motivation, during his November 30, 2015, press conference, Pope Francis said, “Some people say [Chaouqui] was upset” because her employment with the Vatican ended when the commission was dissolved.

On July 6, Vallejo Balda’s attorney “pleaded for full acquittal on the charge of disclosure of confidential information. As a subsidiary plea, she pleaded for the acquittal of the crime of conspiracy ‘because the crime does not exist.’”

The priest had denied that the journalists pressured him, but “prosecutors in their closing statements accused the journalists of being part of a ‘moral conspiracy based on psychologically reinforcing the will of those who passed them documents.’” Nuzzi’s attorney “noted that the revised accusation is essentially instigation – which wasn’t part of the original indictment. ‘We risk having a verdict that is different from the original accusation,’ he said.” Nuzzi’s attorney also challenged the tribunal’s jurisdiction to even hear the case since the alleged crime occurred in Italy.

Chaouqui’s lawyer entered a plea for full acquittal.

The Promoter of Justice, Gian Piero Milano, was appointed by Pope Francis in September 2014. There is no online reference for the vice-Promoter of Justice, Roberto Zannotti, in connection with the Vatican until Vallejo Balda and Chaouqui were arrested and interrogated within “the framework of investigations of the judicial police.” The priest had been jailed “at the disposition of the Promoter of Justice.”

The president of the four-judge tribunal, Giuseppe Dalla Torre, was appointed by Pope John Paul II; judges Piero Antonio Bonnet and Paolo Papanti-Pelletier by Pope Benedict XVI and Venerando Marano by Pope Francis in June, 2013.

On July 7, the Tribunal found Vallejo Balda guilty of leaking the documents. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Since he has already been imprisoned for 8 months, his sentence could be cut to 10 months “because he confessed during the trial.” Chaouqui was found guilty of conspiring in the crime, but was not charged with the actual leak of the documents “given the lack of evidence.” She was sentenced to 10 months in prison. The sentence was suspended for five years, meaning if she breaks no more Vatican laws during that time, she is free. “Both she and Vallejo will be required to pay for the cost of the trial.” Maio was absolved of any crime. The Tribunal admitted that the Vatican had no jurisdiction over Fittipaldi and Nuzzi.

After the verdicts were read, a Vatican spokesman defended the trial as “necessary” because leaked document create a “negative context” when “public opinion has the right to objective and serene information.”

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For all the crimes and malfeasance disclosed in Avarice: Papers that Reveal Wealth, Scandals and Secrets in the Church of Francis.and Merchants in the Temple, the only investigation opened by the Vatican involves misappropriated funds by an appointee of Pope Benedict.

Compare the imprisonment of Vallejo Balda with that of Pope Francis’ ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Archbishop Josef Wesolowski. He was accused of paying poor street boys for oral sex and taking pictures of them while they masturbated. Pope Francis removed him from office in August 2013 without informing the civil authorities or the public. Wesolowski disappeared and remained a free man for over a year. During that time, he  acquired more than 100,000 computer files of pornography with disturbing photos of children who were likely victims of human trafficking.

The Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Serra reported that Wesolowski was arrested by order of the pope because “there was a serious risk that the nuncio would be arrested on Italian territory at the request of the Dominican authorities and then extradited.” His arrest was on September 24, 2014, the same day Gian Piero Milano was appointed as Promoter of Justice.

Even under house arrest in the Vatican, Wesolowski was still able to access child porn on the internet.

A Vatican trial of the prelate was scheduled and would have publicized the above information. Wesolowski died in August 2015 before the trial took place. “Wesolowski’s sudden death aroused doubts and suspicions in Dominican Republic and other countries.”




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