Francis is facing an investigation into his personal authorisation of alleged illegal eavesdropping during a Vatican investigation into the sale of a £300 million central London property, Telegraph.co.uk reported (16 June).
Lawyers for Raffaele Mincione, an Italian financier based in England, convicted of defrauding the Vatican, have lodged a complaint with Prof Margaret Satterthwaite, the UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers.
During the trial it emerged that Francis himself had given investigators powers allowing them to tap phones, intercept emails and arrest anyone they wanted without the approval of a judge.
In the complaint, the lawyers named Francis as a perpetrator of human rights abuses.
And: "This unwarranted authorisation of prosecutors by an absolute monarch has given the green light to surveillance without the articulation of specific reasons, ongoing judicial or other independent and impartial oversight, or a mechanism for challenging the implementation …More