Vatican cardinal says donations went to charity, not brother

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A once-powerful cardinal testified Thursday that he donated 125,000 euros ($140,000) of Vatican money to a Sardinian diocese for purely charitable reasons, rejecting Vatican prosecutors’ claims that the money benefitted his brother who ran the charity.

Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the first-ever cardinal to testify before the Vatican’s criminal tribunal, said he couldn’t deny that his brother Antonino Becciu was the legal representative of the Spes charity, which is the operational arm of the Diocese of Ozieri’s Caritas charity operation.

But Becciu insisted that Spes had a long track record of doing good works in his home diocese, and that the donations of Holy See money, which he was authorized to distribute, responded to verifiable needs requested by the Ozieri bishop: One initiative concerned rebuilding a burned-down bakery that employed disadvantaged youths, while another was to build a multi-use social center for the poor.

Prosecutors have accused Becciu of embezzling Holy See funds and placed him on trial along with nine other people accused of defrauding the Vatican of tens of millions of euros, much of the money donations from the faithful. The key focus of the trial concerns the Vatican’s 350-million-euro investment in a London real estate venture, but the trial also encompasses unrelated investigations, including Becciu’s Sardinian donations. The 10 defendants have denied wrongdoing.

Becciu, who was once the powerful No. 2 in the Vatican secretariat of state, had been scheduled as the first suspect to be questioned on the stand Thursday.

But Prosecutor Alessandro Diddi, who has spearheaded the Vatican investigation for nearly three years, advised the court that he wasn’t prepared for the interrogation. Diddi cited other work that had taken...