Vatican scandal, the accusation against Becciu: “He tried to have Perlasca retracted”

Cardinal Angelo Becciu would have attempted to have Monsignor Alberto Perlasca retract the statements made to the Vatican investigators by relying on the authority of his Superior, the bishop of Como Oscar Cantoni, and for this reason, in the decree of summons for trial, to the former Substitute of the Vatican Secretariat of State the subornation of a witness is also contested. The new challenge was triggered by a letter sent on March 10, 2021 to the Vatican investigators by Perlasca, with which Becciu’s former collaborator at the Secretariat of State “substantially denounced the very serious pressure suffered” by the cardinal “through the Bishop of Como, Oscar Cantoni “, to induce him,” fearing sentences for perjury, to retract what he declared to the magistrates “. Hearing the Vatican magistrates, Perlasca would have confirmed the “very serious pressure received, through his superior, from Becciu”, specifying “that he was certain that the Bishop of Como had received the Cardinal’s request” in this sense. “The message that was sent to me – explains Perlasca in the interrogation – is ‘that if I don’t portrait I can be sentenced to a sentence of at least six months’ because everything I have declared is a lie”. When asked if he was certain that the bishop of Como had received information from Becciu on this point, the prelate replied: “I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of what His Excellency Cantoni has reported to me”. Listened to by the investigators last April, Cantoni then confirmed the circumstance reported by Perlasca. “The particular gravity of the incident cannot escape, as well as for the repercussions on the authenticity of the evidence, also for the instrument used by Becciu who, in order to to induce Archbishop Alberto Perlasca to retract his declarations, he tried to use the levers of the duties of hierarchical obedience “, underline the Vatican magistrates, recalling the declarations of Perlasca himself on the point:” I want to specify that Cardinal Becciu addressed his Your Excellency Cantoni, because there is a hierarchical and obedient relationship with me and it is precisely for this reason that I decided to inform the Judicial Authority of what happened. I do not dare to think in what embarrassment I would have found myself if His Excellency Cantoni, instead of reporting the message coming from Cardinal Becciu in the terms in which they were represented by me, had imposed a retraction on me ”.