Testimony: Pope approved Vatican payout for London property

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis allegedly authorized negotiating an exit strategy for a key suspect in the Vatican’s big embezzlement trial and was so satisfied with the outcome that he paid for a celebratory dinner at a fancy Roman fish restaurant the night the 15-million- euro payout closed, one of the defendants testified Wednesday.

The testimony by Monsignor Mauro Carlino, a onetime secretary in the Vatican secretariat of state, placed the pope squarely in the center of the landmark trial and raised questions about why low-ranking Vatican officials were indicted and their superiors were not — given the hierarchical way authority, decision-making and obedience are exercised in the Holy See.

The trial concerns the Vatican’s 350-million-euro (US$390 million) investment in a London real estate venture, which lost the Holy See some 217 million euros, much of it donations from the faithful. Vatican prosecutors have accused Italian brokers and Vatican officials of fleecing the Holy See of millions in fees and of extorting the Holy See of 15 million to get full ownership of the building.

Carlino is accused of extortion and abuse of office for his role in negotiating the payout to Italian broker Gianluigi Torzi so the Vatican could get full ownership of the building.

At issue are contracts signed between Torzi and another Vatican official in November and December 2018 asserting that the Vatican would own 30,000 shares in the building’s holding company and Torzi 1,000. But Torzi’s shares were the only ones with the right to vote, meaning he controlled the building.

By December 2018, the Vatican realized it had “an empty box,” Carlino testified, and scrambled to figure out a way to get full control of the building from Torzi: either by buying out Torzi’s shares or...