VATICAN CITY (AP) — Within the final two years, protection legal professionals have acquired 3,225 pages of WhatsApp messages between two ladies who have been tangential to the Vatican’s “trial of the century,” however have been truly intimately conscious of the investigation and in some methods concerned.
Their 4 years of conversations, from 2020-2024, present a parallel, behind-the-scenes model of one of the crucial tumultuous intervals in Vatican historical past, when Pope Francis licensed a trial of 10 folks, together with a cardinal, into alleged monetary misconduct.
The chats, written in Italian and translated right here by The Related Press, recommend that these two ladies helped persuade one of many unique prime suspects within the case, Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, to alter his story and activate his former boss, Cardinal Angelo Becciu. Perlasca was spared indictment; Becciu was convicted.
Based on the chats, first reported on by Domani newspaper and printed by different Italian media, public relations specialist Francesca Chaouqui implied to Perlasca household good friend Genevieve Ciferri that she loved shut contact with Vatican investigators and Francis, and wished to assist Perlasca. She assured Ciferri that everybody from the pope on down knew and permitted of their maneuvering to assist Perlasca really feel supported so he would implicate Becciu.
Key textual content exchanges
Ciferri feared that Chaouqui was simply boasting and on Could 19, 2024, she demanded Chaouqui reassure her that police, Prosecutor Alessandro Diddi and Francis all “knew and agreed in your collaboration with the investigations, and specifically had direct data of the collaboration you established with me.”
Chaouqui assures her they have been in settlement however warned: “If it will get out that all of us agreed, it’s the top.”
Ciferri: “Please be clear, you perceive how necessary it’s for me to be totally satisfied. As a result of you realize the doubts and skepticism to which, as a consequence of my weak point and insecurity, I’ve at all times been topic throughout our relationship, which has now become affection. Are you confirming that every one the folks I discussed, together with the Holy Father, have been in settlement and conscious of the whole lot? And are you confirming that you’ve got by no means lied to me about something? And do you additionally make me perceive how severe it might be for the trial if each you and Prof. Diddi are discovered to have lied shamelessly through the proceedings? As a result of then I too would agree that for the great of the church, it will be higher to place a tombstone on it!”
Chaouqui: “It’s important to distinguish between two ranges.”
Ciferri: “I don’t perceive …”
Chaouqui: “The extent of reality the place everybody from the pope down knew what we have been doing. And the opposite stage, which is the trial stage. The place we’ve to say that nobody knew, as a result of if all of us knew, the trial is null and void and it’s a conspiracy. Perceive?”
Ciferri: “Okay, now I perceive. I’ll act accordingly, nothing to worry. Thanks, Francesca, that’s all.”
In a textual content message to The Related Press, Diddi declined to touch upon the chats. “The trial is the venue the place the adversarial course of should happen,” he wrote. Chaouqui declined to remark.
In an announcement to AP, Ciferri mentioned the chats have been of no significance to the appeals trial itself. She mentioned they have been as a substitute a “collateral” affair that’s being investigated individually, after she filed complaints with Vatican prosecutors in opposition to Chaouqui for what she known as “psychological manipulation and struggling.”
“Persevering with to magnify the significance of the chat messages is senseless and is barely a ineffective pretext, whereas the enchantment can be based mostly on the precise crimes and the person tasks of every particular person for every depend,” Ciferri wrote.
An audio file reveals extra
In April, Italy’s Domani newspaper produced an audio file purportedly of the Vatican’s police commissioner, Stefano De Santis, giving directions to Chaouqui about what Perlasca ought to say in his revised spherical of questioning, in August 2020. On the time, Perlasca was nonetheless a suspect and had submitted to a primary spherical of questioning by which he defended Becciu.
After he turned on Becciu, he grew to become a key prosecution witness.
Within the audio, De Santis suggests Perlasca talk about two different defendants who have been ultimately convicted: cash supervisor Enrico Crasso and Perlasca’s deputy, Fabrizio Tirabassi.
“Francesca, given that he’s in possession of the interrogation report, as a result of he had a replica of it, he ought to learn it and underline all of the factors the place, in gentle of current occasions, in gentle of current info, in gentle of the introspective work he has accomplished inside himself, he must make clear, simply to qualify info and acts that don’t concern him, however concern others; simply to say, as soon as and for all, how the system of Crasso and Tirabassi within the years when he was head of the workplace developed in a manner that he actually discovered, having arrived after Crasso and after Tirabassi, however which he can not fail to find out about. In different phrases, he ought to take inspiration from that interrogation, from these questions, and make clear all these factors and all of the ‘I don’t is aware of’ he mentioned at the moment.”
The Vatican hasn’t disputed the authenticity of the audio or commented on its contents.
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Related Press faith protection receives help by way of the AP’s collaboration with The Dialog US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely answerable for this content material.
