A Vatican court has dropped a case against Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the highest-ranked Catholic cleric ever to face charges of financial crimes, lawyers representing one of the other nine defendants said on Wednesday.
The case regarded a loss-making investment of Church money in a controversial property deal regarding a building on Sloane Avenue in London.
Becciu, who last year resigned as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, was accused of embezzlement and abuse of office in relation to when he was the Vatican's Substitute of the Secretariat of State.
"The Vatican court has annulled the indictment of my client, Fabrizio Tirabassi, an employee of the Secretariat of State, and of other important and fundamental figures in the case, such as Cardinal Angelo Becciu, financiers Raffaele Mincione and Gianluigi Torzi and Monsignor Mauro Carlino," said lawyers Massimo Bassi and Cataldo Intrieri.
"The sensational trial on the sale of the Sloane Square property has effectively been nullified and limited to hypotheses of secondary felonies".
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
