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One of the Catholic Church’s most senior officials has made a rare and tempestuous appearance in a foreign court to defend the Vatican over a soured UK property deal on which it lost more than £100mn.
Pope Francis’ chief of staff, Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, clashed at the High Court in London on Thursday during civil proceedings brought by Raffaele Mincione, a financier whom the Vatican state court found guilty of embezzlement and money-laundering for his role in the troubled transaction.
Having sworn on the Bible to tell the truth, the archbishop was accused at one point during a grilling by Mincione’s barrister, Charles Samek KC, of lying to the court over the details of an invoice — a suggestion Peña Parra dismissed.
The Holy See has traditionally invoked the principle of sovereign immunity to avoid participating in foreign court proceedings, including prosecutions for financial scandals in Italy in the 1980s and child sex abuse cases in various countries in more recent years.
However, Peña Parra, wearing a black cassock and clerical collar, testified in the case brought by Mincione, who wants the London court to rule he acted in “good faith” in his dealings with the Vatican.
Mincione received a five-and-a-half-year sentence from the Vatican court but has never served jail time and has been based in London.
The Vatican made a loss of more than £100mn in 2022 when it sold the former Harrods warehouse in London’s Chelsea, having spent more than €350mn to acquire it between 2014 and 2018. The episode led the Church to review how it handles its finances.
Mincione was one of seven defendants — including one of the Vatican’s most powerful former officials, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu — convicted in December by the Vatican court in the landmark case for their roles in the deal.
Peña Parra, a former Vatican diplomat, told the High Court on Thursday that he had never heard of the troubled investment until after assuming his new role replacing Becciu as the head of the Vatican’s general administration in October 2018.
He did subsequently authorise important steps in the Vatican’s attempt to extricate itself from the building. These included approving a further share purchase for the Vatican.
However, soon after the purchase, he discovered that the company that owned the Chelsea building had previously been restructured, leaving the Holy See with non-voting shares.
Meanwhile, another businessman, Gianluigi Torzi, still held voting shares that gave him effective control of the property and thus also had to be bought out, according to the archbishop’s written statement to the court.
While the Vatican eventually bought out Torzi for about £15mn, the businessman was convicted in the Vatican trial last year of extortion, fraud and money-laundering, and sentenced to six years in prison for his role in the transaction.
Samek quizzed Peña Parra, 64, about the Vatican’s dealings with Torzi, asking him why one of the payments to him was not mentioned in an “information note” prepared for Vatican authorities.
Peña Parra replied that the document was not supposed to be an all-encompassing account, adding that the Pope had been kept informed. “I see the Holy Father every Tuesday,” he said.
Mincione, who attended the hearing, received a grilling of his own earlier in proceedings over the valuation of the property. He was accused by the Vatican’s barrister, Charles Hollander KC, of distorting its value for his own benefit.
Mincione dismissed the suggestion and denies any wrongdoing. He said the property’s value was justified by independent auditors and third-party consultants.
The case continues.
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