Angelo Becciu, a once-powerful cardinal and former adviser to Pope Francis, is facing embezzlement and abuse of office charges.

A two-and-a-half-year corruption trial that uncovered infighting and intrigue in the highest ranks of the Vatican is nearing its conclusion as a court is expected to issue verdicts for a once-powerful cardinal and nine others.

Judge Giuseppe Pignatone will read the verdicts of the three-judge jury in the converted courtroom of the Vatican Museums on Saturday.

Cardinal Angelo Becciu, 75, a former adviser to Pope Francis and once a papal candidate himself, is the first cardinal to be charged in the Vatican’s criminal court and the Catholic Church’s highest-ranking cleric to go on trial in the small town was placed -state.

He is accused of embezzlement, abuse of office and attempting to persuade a witness to give false testimony.

Becciu has denied any wrongdoing, as have the other nine defendants – including financiers, lawyers and former Vatican employees – who are also accused of financial crimes including fraud, money laundering and extortion.

Prosecutor Alessandro Diddi has requested a prison sentence of seven years and three months for Becciu and between almost four and 13 years for the others.

London building sold for $153 million loss

The process that began July 2021, held in 85 hearings. It centered largely on the chaotic purchase of a building in London by the Secretariat of State, the Vatican’s main administrative and diplomatic department.

Becciu took second place there in 2014, when the company began investing in a fund managed by Italian financier Raffaele Mincione, securing around 45 percent of the building at 60 Sloane Avenue.

In 2018, when Becciu had moved to another job at the Vatican, the Secretariat of State felt it had been deceived by Mincione and turned to another financier, Gianluigi Torzi, for help in ousting Mincione and purchasing the Rest of the building.

According to prosecutors, who have charged both men with fraud, corruption and embezzlement, Torzi also plundered the Vatican.

The Vatican is under a cloud of embarrassment sold the building It recorded an estimated loss of about 140 million euros ($153 million) last year.

Additional fees

The process has a light shone about the Holy See’s murky finances, which Pope Francis has been trying to clean up since he took the helm of the Catholic Church in March 2013. It is also a test of his reforms to the Vatican justice system.

Just weeks before the trial, Francis gave the Vatican’s civil courts the authority to try cardinals and bishops. Previously they were judged by a court presided over by cardinals.

Becciu, who was dismissed from his second post by Pope Francis in 2020 over alleged nepotism but is still a cardinal, has also been indicted on allegations related to the investigation.

This includes funneling funds and contracts to companies or charities controlled by his brothers on their home island of Sardinia; and payments to Cecilia Marogna, a Sardinian woman also on trial, for a project that Becciu said was intended to help secure the release of a nun kidnapped in Mali.

Other defendants on trial include Enrico Crasso, a former Vatican investment manager, Fabrizio Tirabassi, a former Vatican employee, and Father Mauro Carlino, the cardinal’s former secretary.