Italy on the Verge of Another "Becciu Trial"
They are accused of "money laundering" and "embezzlement".
Caria alleges that funds from the "8 per thousand" (= a kind of Italian church tax) intended for the diocese of Ozieri - about 2 million euros over 10 years and 100,000 euros the diocese received from the Vatican (a donation that the Vatican court considered illegal) - have since 2013 ended up in the accounts of Spes, a social cooperative for which Cardinal Becciu's brother is responsible.
Spes is a non-profit cooperative used by Caritas and the Diocese of Ozieri to carry out charitable works.
At the hearing on 8 January, the public prosecutor, Sergio De Luca, announced the request for the preventive seizure of the defendants' assets, which amount to approximately 2 million euros.
Which is strange: None of the 'damaged' parties - the Italian state, the CEI and the Secretariat of State - have ever complained of any wrongdoing, nor have any of them formed a civil party in the trial.
"There has never been any misappropriation of funds for private purposes," says defence lawyer Ivano Iai.
He stresses that these institutions cannot be audited by the Italian authorities, but only by the funding bodies. In this case, however, they have never found any management anomalies, nor have they questioned anything, but they have confirmed, year after year, the contributions paid out.
The defence lawyer, Ivano Iai, insists that documentary evidence can show that "every single cent of the 8 per thousand funds" has been used correctly, while the sum received from the Secretariat of State is still being paid into a diocesan bank account.
The defence also pointed out the very close link between the ongoing trial in Sassari and the Vatican trial against Cardinal Becciu, since documents from the Vatican trial were acquired by the Sassari Public Prosecutor's Office and included in the file.
For example, the full report of the testimony of the Bishop of Ozieri, who was questioned as a witness without any guarantees before the Vatican Court, was found again in the Sassari trial, in which the Bishop himself is a defendant. This is a violation of Italian procedural law.
The acts obtained by the Vatican, including the sentence against Cardinal Becciu, are inadmissible under Italian law because they are contrary to the principles of the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights, signed in Rome in 1950 and ratified by Italy but not by the Vatican.
According to LaNuovaBQ.it (10 January), the indictment of Monsignor Melis brings into play the Villa Madama agreement (article 48), which recognises the Church's independent use of the money from the 8 per thousand.
Therefore, the State has no right to criticise the kind of charitable interventions for which the Italian bishops use the money.
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