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Sinned and crucified: Cardinal Angelo Becciu at a press conference

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Gregorio Borgia / dpa

For the first time in the history of the Catholic Church, a cardinal has been sentenced to imprisonment by a Vatican court in a major financial trial over questionable million-dollar deals. The Vatican Court sentenced Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu to five years and six months in prison. The reason was his involvement in a loss-making real estate scandal.

Vatican prosecutor Alessandro Diddi originally demanded a prison sentence of seven years and three months for the 75-year-old Becciu, as well as a heavy fine. Nine other people were charged with him.

The criminal trial was one of the largest in the Vatican to date. Since for the first time a high-ranking Curia cardinal was before the court as a defendant, the legal proceedings attracted a lot of attention in advance. Becciu's lawyers announced that they would appeal the verdict.

Money laundering, corruption, abuse of office

The trial, which has been going on for more than two years, was essentially about the loss-making purchase of a luxury property in London's Chelsea district by the Vatican Secretariat of State, where Becciu was an important department head for several years. The deal went awry because the Vatican invested significantly more money than planned. In the end, there was a loss in the three-digit millions.

Becciu had always denied the allegations surrounding the dubious deals. In court, the cardinal read statements in which he emphatically asserted his "absolute innocence" and regretted having been put in a "public pillory of worldwide proportions."

Meanwhile, the investigations surrounding the questionable million-dollar deal in London uncovered further crooked deals and machinations within the Vatican. Among other things, the cardinal was accused of questionable transfers to his Sardinian home diocese to a charitable cooperative led by his brother, as well as payments to a security consultant who was also accused. The Vatican prosecution accused the Italian churchman and nine other defendants of extortion, money laundering, fraud, corruption, embezzlement and abuse of office.

rai/dpa