VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican City State's chief prosecutor said he was satisfied with a British court ruling that said a now-convicted financier involved in the Vatican purchase of a London property had not acted in good faith.
Alessandro Diddi, the Vatican's chief prosecutor, told Vatican News, "The British judges have affirmed what has always been argued by my office, namely that Raffaele Mincione acted toward the Secretariat of State 'below the standards' by which good faith conduct is measured."
"I believe that this ruling also underscores the correctness of the conclusions reached by the Vatican tribunal," Diddi said. The Vatican court convicted Mincione in December 2023 of embezzlement and money laundering, sentencing him to five and a half years in jail. He is appealing the conviction.
In 2020 Mincione had asked a civil court in England, where he lives, to make several declarations attesting to his "good faith" in the 2018 transaction with the Secretariat of State for the London property. In the end, the Vatican lost some $150 million on the deal.
In a 50-page ruling published Feb. 21, Judge Robin Knowles of the High Court of Justice declined to issue the declarations Mincione sought, saying that the financier and his companies "made no attempt to protect the State (Vatican City State) from fraudulent bad actors. They took no care towards the State and they put their own interests first."
The Vatican, the judge said, had good reason "to consider itself utterly let down in its experience" with Mincione and his companies.
Hearings in the case were held in London in June and July; Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, substitute secretary of state, testified in person on behalf of the Vatican.
Knowles wrote in his decision that testimony at the trial made it clear that Mincione and his associates "fell below the standards of communication with the State that could be described as good faith conduct."
In addition, he said, Mincione's valuation of the property was "misleading."
