Posted on 10/05/2021 3:32:39 PM PDT by ebb tide
Forbes.com (October 4) presented the position of René Brülhart at the Becciu trial. Brülhart is the former head of the Vatican’s Supervisory and Financial Intelligence Authority (AIF). Highlights:
• A Swiss anti–money laundering expert (“the James Bond of the financial world”), Brülhart removed Liechtenstein from blacklists and accepted the AIF job in 2012 under the condition that not even the pope was off-limits.
• Francis received a briefing [from Brülhart] about Becciu in 2016 with “incontrovertible” proof about Becciu diverting more than $2 million. Francis ignored the file and made Becciu a cardinal.
• When Francis finally started moving, he gave the prosecution carte blanche, causing the 2019 raids. The most startling was on AIF. It dealt a major blow to Francis’ “financial reforms” because the consortium of auditors suspended AIF over concerns the raid compromised confidential information about ongoing criminal investigations.
• “The person responsible for this is Francis,” Odendall said, “He has made the wrong decisions and appointed the wrong people, all the while pretending he is fighting against bad people.”
• Brülhart resigned. Marc Odendall, an AIF board member followed when a meeting with Francis was quashed, “I wanted to give [Francis] a direct fraternal and professional warning of the consequences of his action,” he told Forbes.
• Brülhart was charged with allowing the London investments to proceed although his AIF had no oversight over the Secretary of State which executed the deal. Odendall calls this a “probably personal revenge” from the lead prosecutor, Gian Piero Milano, with whom Brülhart had “a strained relationship” because Milano failed to act on matters AIF forwarded to him.
• The guilty ones: Francis attended “at least” two meetings with Gianluigi Torzi, the Vatican’s London broker, now charged, in which Torzi, now among the defendants, discussed the final terms of the deal; Parolin oversaw the investments from the beginning; Peña, who succeeded Becciu, arranged Torzi’s meeting with Francis; Perlasca, Becciu’s main accuser, was deeply involved in the deal. Insiders use the term “Friends of Francis” to explain why some Vatican officials are being prosecuted and others aren’t.
• In March 2021, UK judge Tony Baumgartner whom the Vatican invoked to freeze Torzi’s bank accounts, noted that Vatican prosecutors first presented Perlasca as a conspirator but five months later contended that Perlasca had been “kept in the dark.” Baumgartner found this “difficult to accept.” He refused to believe that Peña signed documents without understanding them and was incredulous that Parolin “had the wool pulled completely over his eyes.” He called the Vatican’s arguments “unsupported by credible evidence.”
• For Francis’ justice this doesn’t make a difference. Vatican defendants have no automatic right to call witnesses. The judge decides who can testify, with an eye on “whether they are Friends of Francis.”
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Insiders use the term “Friends of Francis” to explain why some Vatican officials are being prosecuted and others aren’t.
Ping
Francis is a Peronist to his marrow.
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