Pope Francis' own role in the investigation into financial wrongdoing at the Holy See took centre stage Friday in the Vatican tribunal, with witnesses saying he encouraged a key suspect to co-operate with prosecutors and a key defendant accusing him of interfering in the trial.
Friday's hearing was one of the most eagerly anticipated in the Vatican's "trial of the century," given it featured testimony from one of the more colourful figures in recent Vatican history, Francesca Chaouqui. The public relations expert was summoned after it emerged late last year that she had played a behind-the-scenes role in persuading a key suspect-turned-star-witness to change his story and implicate his former boss, Cardinal Angelo Becciu.
Monsignor Alberto Perlasca initially was among the prime suspects, but he changed his story in August 2020 and started co-operating with prosecutors, blaming Becciu, then the No. 2 in the secretariat of state, for the London investment and other questionable expenditures. Chaouqui told the court Friday that she didn't coach Perlasca to help the prosecution as much as to help Pope Francis understand what was going on "behind his back."
Becciu recalled that back in 2017, after the Vatileaks trial, Francis had told Becciu "You must never mention this woman's name again" and had reaffirmed a ban on her entering Vatican territory.
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