Lawyers for Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the principal defendant in the Vatican’s “trial of the century,” on Wednesday accused the prosecutor of attempting to “monstrify” the cardinal, in part by relying on a “Bermuda’s triangle” of witnesses which “didn’t cause airplanes to disappear, but the truth.”

Attorney Fabio Viglione made the assertions during closing arguments in the long-running trial against ten defendants, including Becciu, which is current heading towards verdicts expected in mid-December.

“There was a desire to ‘monstrify’ the cardinal, [but] the ambitious structure developed by the prosecution found no confirmation,” Viglione told the three-judge panel overseeing the case.

“All the evidence denied the prosecution’s theses, thanks to extravagant forms of reconstructions of facts. We arrive here calmly, with an active assessment of the cardinal’s innocence,” he said, requesting that Becciu be acquitted.

Although most of the defendants in the trial are charged exclusively for their roles in the controversial…