Vatican City, Oct 5, 2021 / 09:00 am
The Vatican finance trial involving Cardinal Angelo Becciu continued on Tuesday with two hours of legal debates that could potentially result in an abrupt end to the court case.
Judges adjourned the hearing until Wednesday morning, when they will give their ruling on whether to move forward with the trial after the defendants’ lawyers took issue with what they consider to be significant procedural missteps by the prosecution.
Tribunal judge Giuseppe Pignatone may order the prosecutor’s office to hand over missing materials that the 10 defendants’ legal teams need to prepare their defenses, or he could order investigators to start over from scratch.
The trial is the culmination of more than two years of investigation by the Vatican into what happened in and around the Secretariat of State’s 350 million-euro purchase of an investment property in London between 2014 and 2018.