Defence at Vatican trial want access to pope comments to investigators

VATICAN CITY: Defence lawyers at a corruption trial related to the Vatican’s purchase of a luxury building in London on Wednesday demanded that the prosecution share the contents of its conversations with Pope Francis.

The fourth hearing of the trial of six defendants, including a cardinal, centred around defence demands for more access to evidence held by the prosecution and explanations for what the defence says are discrepancies, omissions and lapses in video tapes of interrogations.

Lawyer Luigi Panella accused the prosecution of hiding details of an interrogation while questioning Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, a former Vatican official who was first a suspect and then a star witness for the prosecution.

Panella said a video of the interrogation showed that Perlasca “looked shocked” when investigators told him that his answers did not coincide with what the pope had told them.

The trial revolves mostly around the purchase by the Vatican’s Secretariat of State of a commercial and residential building at 60 Sloane Avenue in London’s South Kensington, one of the wealthiest districts in the British capital.