“Turzi did not deceive the Secretariat on Sloane Street” – Corriere.it

Regarding the Vatican scandal related to the purchase of a building in London, comes the first ruling by an English judge to dismantle important parts of the investigation by the Pope’s judges, the promoters of justice. The court asserts that the Vatican State Secretariat was not fooled by Molise broker Gianluigi Turzi about the way the building on 60th Sloane Street passed in November 2018 by Raphael Mencione’s Athena Fund – the Vatican invested $ 200 million. In 2014 – to a special purpose vehicle, Luxembourg-based Gutt, owned by the Secretariat. From this company, Torzi, who was acting as a middleman, would have left 30,000 shares without voting rights to the Secretariat, but he would have kept himself thousands of shares only with voting rights, those that gave him the right to manage the property indefinitely, according to Vatican judges. “Secretly and unfairly” in order to extort money from the Secretariat. On June 5, 2020, Turzi was arrested in the Vatican after a long interrogation, on various charges including extortion, to be released after ten days and a long defense brief was presented, with the help of attorneys Marco Franco and Ambra Giovini.

Commercial deal

Judge Baumgarten of the Crown Court in Southwark provided another reading of the facts, based on documents the promoters submitted to obtain confirmation of confiscation of assets against Turzi. Therefore, it is not the sentence that relates to the premise of the crime but to the legitimacy of the control: In any case, a decision that delves into the merits of the question. The decision – which could have weight in the overall evaluation of the process by the promoters of Vatican Judge Gian Piero Milano and Alessandro Didi – was made as part of the reservation request against Vita Healthy ltd (the new name of Sunset Entrerprise ltd), one of the companies with which the broker got 15 One million euros from the Vatican in May 2019 to leave the 1,000 shares with voting rights for the Vatican. According to the judge, who drafted a 42-page ruling, this was a normal business deal between two parties.

Perlasca is incapable and incompetent

The Vatican was not fooled, says the judge who melted the assets in favor of Turzi, given that after the file was the head of the General Secretariat’s administrative office, Monsignor Alberto Perlaska, who was delegated by a deputy to the Secretariat, Monsignor Edgar Pena Parra. The judge writes: Professor Diddy says that Mgr Perlaska was incompetent and incompetent. While this may be true, acting as an dishonest conspirator is another. The sentence reveals, among other things, the existence of a verbal agreement between Turzi and State Secretariat official Fabrizio Terabasi (among the suspects in the investigation of the promoters), to recognize the middleman of 3% of the value of the building. Estimated by the end of 2017 at 275 million pounds, more than 8 million pounds (about 9.1 million euros).

Parolin note

The same foreign minister also appears in the newspapers, Pietro Parolin, who was to approve the operation on November 25, 2018 – three days after signing the contracts with Turzi. After reading this memorandum also in light of the explanations given by Monsignor yesterday evening. Perlaska and Dr. Terabacy, having obtained assurances about the validity of the process (which would bring benefits to the Holy See), its transparency and the absence of reputational risks (which, in fact, would override those of managing the government’s financial fund) in favor of concluding the contract. Thank you. Parolin 11/25/2018, the memo reported by promoters before the English court.