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“With the Pope we only had to talk about some causes of beatification”, says the now former Cardinal Angelo Becciu to explain his “surprise” at the end of the press conference about his resignation – after the acceleration of news about the “Becciu method” contained in Espresso Research. The meeting with the Pope, on Thursday at six in the afternoon, had already been fixed for some time: it was a ritual meeting. Instead, it was transformed “surprisingly” into something else: in the recognition and communication, by Pope Francis, of the enormous material in the hands of the researchers, after collaboration with the Vatican authorities, on the operation of the Becciu system, with the delivery of cards and related accounts by a member of the cardinal’s magic circle.
L’Espresso is able to reveal that the turning point in the investigation was possible thanks to the confessions of one of the closest collaborators (Monsignor Mauro Carlino, Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, Fabrizio Tirabassi, Vincenzo Mauriello). Becciu’s decision to reject all the accusations, avoiding going into the fund, is due to the fact that the former cardinal, through lobbyist Marco Simeon, who is in charge of his communication and political strategy, learned about the next article on ‘Expressed. An article that Becciu said at the press conference that he read “only in part.”
After the news of the funds from the Saint Peter Pennies used to buy a building in London for 160 million, the investigation rises to the level and focuses on Angelo Becciu who would have diverted the money from alms to hedge funds and favors the family. Now Francisco orders clarity and punishments for those responsible
In front of journalists, the ex-cardinal says he is “surprised”, “stunned”, immersed in a surreal situation. However, on the contrary, the reconstruction he offers on the reasons that led to his resignation as prefect of the congregation for the cause of saints and his resignation to the prerogatives of the cardinals, after the investigation with which L’Espresso began , is in many ways surreal. to reconstruct the “method” followed in the seven years in which he directed the Secretary of State. In essence, explaining that it was the Pope who asked him to resign, during a difficult encounter, and that he does not intend “in any way to challenge him”, but that it is a “misunderstanding” that he intends to explain.
The clarification that he intends to provide, however, at the press conference is opaque, quite diffuse and seasoned with serious statements. As in the moment when he reveals a decided lack of confidence in the intentions and gifts of the pontiff, when he clarifies that he “hopes” that the Pope is not manipulated. Maneuvered? I hope not, I hope not. Or they gave him wrong information, “he explains.
Becciu says that nothing is true, like a statement issued by his family. However, it does not clarify, it does not explain, it does not provide a structured defense. He even approaches the famous theme of “without my knowledge”, the chiseled by Claudio Scajola about the purchase – at a reduced price – of the house in front of the Colosseum that cost him his ministry and his political career. In fact, when the cardinal is asked about Enrico Crasso’s role in managing the Vatican’s finances, Becciu hesitantly displays “I don’t know.” The man who, as a substitute for the secretary of state, with a lawful but decidedly unusual operation, entrusted the entire Vatican fund to a Credit Suisse financier, letting him invest the secretary of state’s money in hedge funds based in havens. taxes, in fact now claims that he knew nothing of those huge rounds of money. “Enrico Crasso is not that I followed him step by step: I met him once a year,” he replied to Espresso: “Those who followed the operations were mine from the administration. About the investments he made, he told me: ‘An investment was made for such and such work and for such another: but it is not that he told me about the ramifications of all these investments. So I don’t know, here, Crassus where he invested ». However, according to financial sources and documents that L’Espresso has been in possession of, it turns out that for years investment funds that have their own offices in Luxembourg, or in Asia, or in Malta have been used. Not only that: the same investment funds on which the income of the companies of Cardinal Becciu’s brothers would later also be relocated.
But of all this, Becciu says he doesn’t know. He claims, repeatedly, that he did not do business and “never met” two key figures in the Espresso investigation and the sale of the Sloane Avenue building in London. They are Alessandro Noceti, director of Valeur Capital and former Credit Suisse, and Lorenzo Vangelisti, CEO of Valeur Group, a company based in Lugano that served to hide hundreds of millions from the Vatican from the Pope, through a box mechanism. Chinese. And about both, Becciu says: “I don’t know who they are.”
On the contrary, like any man of power -of the State or of the Church- who has lost his sense of himself, Becciu in his reconstruction of the management of family relationships shows that he does not recognize any moral limit, of opportunity, in his behavior . At the time when he explains how relations with cooperatives and companies led by his brothers have been regulated, in fact, Becciu is only concerned with defending himself against the accusation of having committed a crime (“based on the investigations he carries out the financial police, so I suppose that Italians, requested by the Vatican Vatican magistrates, it would seem that I have committed the crime of embezzlement ”, he says), while stealing everything else from the“ boutade ”.
Regarding the three tranches of sums diverted to the Spes cooperative, the operational arm of Caritas de Ozieri and directed by his brother Tonino, Becciu offers an explanation only on the one of 100,000 euros that refers to a fund that is based on the Obolo di San Pietro, under his direct control: he says that he assigned it to his brother’s cooperative, for charitable purposes because “he knew it was a diocese in crisis”, and specifies that the money is still in the coffers of Caritas in Ozieri (” therefore I do not understand why they accuse me of embezzlement and complicity: that money is still there “); However, no clarification regarding the two tranches of 300 thousand euros each, requested and obtained by the cardinal, again in favor of the Spes cooperative, extracted by the CEI from the funds of eight per thousand: “It is the money of the CEI assigned by the Bishop, and then everything is documented. Only this, says Becciu: «They accuse me of having recommended the cooperative, but there is no embezzlement there. And then it is money from the CEI. As if to say that it was not he who disbursed the fund. And that in any case there is nothing wrong with recommending.
There is not even an explanation about the Angel company, which is owned by his brother Mario and that, using the solidarity market like Spes, would produce and bottle “Thumbelina beer”, which however is not on the market or in distribution. “Una boutade” says Becciu simply. Some more details refer to the works commissioned to his brother Francesco, a carpenter, between 2005 and 2010, when Becciu was apostolic nuncio: basically he says that he told his brother “give me two doors and send them to me” when he was in Angola and that he called his brother for the nunciature in Cuba, because it was “difficult to find the material and the masons”: “Call it a conflict of interest!” is Becciu’s comment. On leaving, a French journalist asks for information: he understood that we were talking about hardware, he is disoriented, he still finds it strange that they were talking about carpentry work. However, he takes notes as the former cardinal heads to his car, with the dome of San Pedro in the background.
