Vatican extortion trial: Papal adviser used Italian secret service for spy work

According to written testimony obtained by the Associated Press, one of Pope Francis’ top advisers at the Vatican outsourced internal Vatican police spy work to members of the Italian secret service. This work included sweeping the adviser’s office for bugs and providing intelligence reports.

The testimony, obtained Thursday, is related to a a major fraud and extortion trial involving the Vatican that was set to resume Friday. 10 people, including a once-powerful cardinal, are on trial in the Vatican criminal tribunal in connection with a €350 million investment in a London property. Prosecutors say the 10, which include the Holy See’s longtime money manager, Italian brokers and lawyers, fleeced the pope of tens of millions in fees and extorted the Vatican of €15 million so they could get full ownership of the property.

The man accused in the testimony of outsourcing spy work is Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, who holds the second highest position in the Vatican secretariat of state. He is not one of the 10 charged in the extortion trial, though some of his subordinates are. He allegedly authorized the subordinates to negotiate the final contracts in the London property deal.

The Vatican testimony was given by Vincenzo Mauriello, one of Peña Perra’s former deputies. According to it, after the deal was done, Peña Perra told Mauriello he wanted to do a security sweep of his office because he believed his private conversations “were becoming known outside.”

Peña Parra allegedly asked Mauriello if he knew anyone outside the Vatican security apparatus who could do the job. Mauriello suggested Andrea Tineri, a friend who worked in Italy’s AISI foreign intelligence service.

Tineri didn’t find anything during the sweep. He was then asked by Peńa Perra to to produce some intelligence dossiers on key figures.

Peña Perra’s alleged actions, as well as his alleged bypassing of the Vatican’s own police force in the process, raise some fundamental questions about the security and sovereignty of the Vatican City State. It’s also just one of multiple controversies the Vatican has had to navigate in recent months. Earlier this month, the Vatican released a letter from Pope Benedict XVI responding to a report saying he mishandled four clergy sex abuse cases in his time as archbishop of Germany’s Munich diocese from 1977-1982.