ROME: An Italian financier who acted as Vatican intermediary in an opaque London real estate deal was arrested on Friday, the Holy See announced.
Torzi was said to be a middleman din 2018 during the final stages of the sale of a luxury apartment building on London’s Sloane Avenue to the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, the body charged with the Vatican’s diplomatic and political functions.
The real estate deal that is the subject of an investigation by Vatican prosecutors, with Pope Francis in November talking of suspected corruption.
“Today, the Office of the Promoter of Justice of the Vatican Tribunal, at the end of the interrogation of Mr. Gianluigi Torzi ... issued a warrant for his arrest,“ the Vatican said in a press release published late Friday.
The Pope earlier this week issued a new law designed to boost transparency in the Vatican’s tenders, part of a series of measures to shine more light on the Holy See’s internal workings.
Last October, Vatican police carried out a raid on the offices of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, and five Vatican officials were suspended.
The warrant was issued for “known events related to the buying and selling the London property on Sloane Avenue,“ involving companies linked to functionaries of the secretariat of state, the release said.
“The accused is accused of various episodes of extortion, embezzlement, , aggravated fraud, and money laundering, crimes for which the Vatican Law provides for sentences of up to twelve years imprisonment,“ it added.
Torzi was being held by Vatican City’s gendarmerie police corps.
Earlier this week, the Pope issued a new law designed to boost transparency in Vatican’s tenders, part of a series of measures to shine more light on the Holy See’s internal workings. - AFP
