The lawyers highlight in particular the failure to file the records of the key witness Perlasca. While the prosecution asks for the return of the documents. Pignatone’s decision tomorrow
VATICAN CITY. Pignatone will announce tomorrow whether and how the Oltretevere legal proceedings originating from the purchase of the Sloane Avenue building in London will continue. The process on the management of the funds of the Holy See thus risks stopping even before starting. In his speech at the beginning of the hearing – which lasted a total of two hours and 10 minutes, only Cardinals Giovanni Angelo Becciu and Monsignor Mauro Carlino were present among the ten accused – the Deputy Pg Alessandro Diddi admitted that “it is a duty to meet the defensive needs on the proper interrogation of the accused before this office. We interpret the rules of the Code of Criminal Procedure not as a way of harnessing the prerogatives of the defense, but rather as a moment of protection of these rights, and we want to give testimony that we do not want to trample them. And the possibility, now, of carrying out an interrogation knowing the documents of the investigations is an aspect that must not be denied to the accused ».
The prosecutor also recalled that “there are those who even speak of false evidence. We didn’t understand what they would be. The process is growing with a mount of controversy outside the lines – he continued – Tell us what these false evidence would be: eventually we would like to investigate this too. Thinking that there is false evidence in this process is something we cannot afford ».
On these aspects, the president of the Vatican City State Court Giuseppe Pignatone also had his say, underlining that «everything that is quoted on a journalistic level is totally irrelevant to us. Only what is in the records of the trial counts, especially when we manage to have them in their entirety. On the part of the Court there is the utmost serenity ».
The civil parties – the Secretariat of State, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (Apsa) and the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) – joined the request for referral to the prosecution of the acts of the trial – in any case deferring to the decision of the Court. Instead, it was defined “inadmissible” by the defense of the defendants, who insisted in various capacities on their requests for the nullity of the summons (another way of “clearing” the proceedings), contesting both the failure to interrogate the accused, both the “denial of justice” due to the inability of the defense to exercise their rights, and, above all, the failure to file the documents, in particular the audio and video recordings of the interrogation of the key witness Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, still missing today and not available for defense, despite the order on their deposit issued by the Court in the previous hearing on July 27 last.
The lawyer Luigi Panella, defender of Enrico Crasso, contested the reasons of “confidentiality” regarding the failure to file Perlasca’s video interrogation: “The recordings had to be deposited in the Court Chancellery, not delivered to Tg1 or to the newspapers”. In his reply, Diddi said that the prosecution’s intention was not not to give the videos, but “we asked if it was possible to regulate their dissemination.” The same goes for the huge computer material: “We only asked for the deposit to be postponed because it is not easy to manage, there are over 300 DVDs, and we need to know if it is necessary to deliver copies of everything – among other things not foreseen by our code. which dates back to 1913 – which would cost at least 271 thousand euros “. However, he added, turning to the pacing lawyers, “no one wants to deprive you of anything.”
President Pignatone in the end postponed the hearing to tomorrow morning at 9.30 for the reading of the order with which the Court “will dissolve the maxi-reserve” on all the exceptions, requests and requests of the parties.
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