Vatican, Mincione: “Increasing pressure from the Secretariat of State to sell Palazzo Londra”

Between January and March 2018 “the Vatican Secretariat of State” begins to press “to sell the Palace in London. In June, the pressure is getting stronger”. This is the version of the facts provided by the financier Raffaele Mincione, accused in the trial for the financial scandal linked to the sale of the London building in Sloane Avenue for the crimes of embezzlement, fraud, abuse of office, embezzlement and self-laundering, during the second and last day of his interrogation before the Vatican Tribunal. The trial will resume on 22 June with the interrogation of Enrico Crasso. Mincione reported: “Never once has it been said that there was the intention to say enough, to close everything: the whole market knew that they wanted to sell the Sloane Avenue building for 350 million euros once the project was developed” . “I – said Mincione during the interrogation – I took steps to sell the property”. At a certain point, the financier said again, a sheikh interested in “buying the property at 100 per cent” came forward but then nothing was defined and the sheikh disappeared. Then, during the interrogation, there was also talk of the role played by Torzi who on November 2, 2018 had sent him a whatsapp with the words ‘Good compromise’ which was followed by Mincione’s response with a lot of emoticons to indicate the success of the deal. “In the Vatican they don’t love you”, Torzi would later say, according to what Mincione reported in the interrogation. “I’m not interested in gossip but numbers and financial contributions”, the financier replied. Who, in relation to relations with the Secretariat of State, pointed out: “I have never received any censorship but after the scandal that appeared in the newspapers we were subjected to checks from which nothing irregular on our part emerged”. so until the famous meeting in London on November 20, 2018. In the Chamber today a draft document was shown on the possible terms of the agreement, sent to Mincione, in which a compensation of 40 million pounds is set. Mincione observed: “The Secretariat of State took the part of the property it earned. I was the one it lost. Then Brexit and the pandemic intervened.” The President of the Court Giuseppe Pignatone also intervened on the famous meeting in London to ask if all those present spoke on behalf of the Secretariat of State. Mincione’s answer: “Yes”. Asked by the civil parties, in particular by the lawyer Lipari who represents the IOR, Mincione said that “the investment in London was more conservative than that in Angola compared to which if it had gone ahead for the Holy See it would have been the final grave because he would have lost everything. “