Report: the Vatican asks for an 8-year sentence for the former president of the Vatican bank

The Vatican justice promoter is seeking an eight-year prison sentence for a former president of the Institute for Religious Works, Italian media reported.

HuffPost said on December 5 that Alessandro Diddi had asked for the conviction of Angelo Caloia, the 81-year-old former president of the institution commonly known as the "Vatican bank," for money laundering, self-laundering and embezzlement.

Caloia was president of the institute - also known by the Italian acronym IOR - from 1989 to 2009.

The site said this was the first time the Vatican had asked for a prison sentence for financial crimes.

CNA did not independently verify the report. The Holy See press office did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

The HuffPost reported that the Promoter of Justice was also seeking an eight-year term for Caloia's lawyer, 96-year-old Gabriele Liuzzo, on the same charges, and six years in prison for Liuzzo's son, Lamberto Liuzzo, for money laundering and self-laundering.

The website said Diddi filed the requests in the last two hearings of the two-year trial, on December 1-2. He also reportedly asked for the confiscation of 32 million euros (39 million dollars) already seized by the accounts of Caloia and Gabrielle Liuzzo also from the institute.

Furthermore, Diddi is said to have requested the confiscation of the equivalent of an additional 25 million euros (30 million dollars).

Following Diddi's request, Giuseppe Pignatone, president of the Vatican City State Court, announced that the court would issue the sentence on January 21, 2021.

The Vatican court ordered Caloia and Liuzzo to be tried in March 2018. It accused them of taking part in "illegal behavior" from 2001 to 2008 during the "sale of a considerable part of the institute's real estate assets".

HuffPost said the two men had sold the IOR's real estate assets to themselves via offshore companies and companies in Luxembourg via "a complex shielding operation."

The former director general of the IOR Lelio Scaletti, who died on October 15, 2015, was part of the original investigation, launched in 2014 following the complaints presented by the IOR.

In February 2018, the institute announced that it had joined a civil suit, in addition to the criminal case, against Caloia and Liuzzo.

The trial began on May 9, 2018. At the first hearing, the Vatican court announced its intention to appoint experts to assess the value of the properties that Caloia and Liuzzo had been accused of selling at below market prices, while allegedly stipulating off-paper agreements for higher amounts to pocket the difference.

Caloia was present at the hearing for nearly four hours, even though Liuzzo was absent, citing his age.

According to HuffPost, hearings over the next two and a half years were based on assessments from the Promontory Financial Group, at the request of Ernst von Freyberg, IOR chairman from February 2013 to July 2014.

The hearings also reportedly considered three letters rogatory sent by the Vatican to Switzerland, with the most recent response arriving on January 24, 2020. Letters of letters are a formal request by the courts of one country to the courts of another country for judicial assistance .

The Institute for Religious Works was founded in 1942 under Pope Pius XII but can trace its roots back to 1887. It aims to hold and administer money destined for "religious works or charity," according to its website.

It accepts deposits from legal entities or persons of the Holy See and of the Vatican City State. The main function of the bank is to manage bank accounts for religious orders and Catholic associations.

The IOR had 14.996 clients as of December 2019. Almost half of the clients are religious orders. Other clients include Vatican offices, apostolic nunciatures, episcopal conferences, parishes and clergy.