Pope Francis is reportedly facing being probed after he allegedly approved the unlawful wiretaps of phones in the sale of a London home.
The purported approval is claimed to have taken place during a Vatican probe into the “corrupt” sale of a £300 million house in London.
It comes after the legal team for British banker Raffaele Mincione filed a protest to the UN regarding the alleged violations perpetrated during the trial by Pope Francis
Rodney Dixon KC, a human rights attorney, said that the Pope approved for Mr Mincione’s phone to be wiretapped during the investigation into the alleged corruption at the Vatican.
The trial heard that the spiritual leader permitted detectives to tap phones, intercept emails, and arrest anyone without authority from a judge.
According to Mirror UK, the Pope made the judgment based on ancient laws that the Pope has powers over these authorisations
In the complaint, Mr. Dixon labelled the Pope as a “perpetrator” of human rights abuses. He said: “This unreasoned authorisation to prosecutors by an absolute monarch greenlit the undertaking of surveillance without the articulation of definite reasons, ongoing judicial or other independent and impartial supervision, or a mechanism by which to challenge the implementation of the surveillance before an independent and impartial tribunal.”
The Vatican claims Mr. Mincione misled it by misrepresenting the price when it spent £124 million on a former Harrods warehouse in Chelsea via a fund operated by Mr Mincione.
Prosecutors charged Mr. Mincione and 10 others including Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the former right-hand man to Pope Francis, with charges including fraud, embezzlement, and abuse of office.
Mr Mincione was slapped with charges such as fraud, embezzlement, and misuse of office. It comes following reports that the price of the property was wrongly evaluated as the Vatican argued that the financer inflated the price. However, Mr Mincione has denied the charges and says the property was accurately appraised by independent specialists. According to accusations, Mr Mincione scammed the property by inflating the price when it spent £124 million in an old Harrods warehouse in Chelsea through a fund controlled by Mr Mincione.
He told The Daily Telegraph: “My basic rights have been trampled on and been ignored. How can it be correct that I have been handed criminal penalties for breaches of spiritual law which only applies to members of the Church, which don’t seem to apply to anyone else that handles the Vatican’s investments, and which I didn’t know anything about?
“This has been a devastating experience for me and my family and I truly hope that the United Nations will pursue justice in this matter.” A spokesperson for the Vatican said: “The legitimacy of the investigations and the correspondence of the Vatican judiciary system to the principles of fair trial has been recognised by various foreign courts.”