02-07-2025
Cardinal Becciu: Vengeful ‘Popess' framed me in Vatican fraud trial
A senior Catholic cardinal convicted of embezzlement by the Vatican for his role in a disastrous London property investment has claimed a woman with a grudge may have tried to frame him.
Cardinal Angelo Becciu claims he could have been illegally taped in a sting operation to make him incriminate himself. The cardinal, who is appealing against a five-and-a-half-year sentence handed down by a Vatican court in 2023, has filed an official complaint to Rome prosecutors. In it, he claims Francesca Chaouqui, a former Vatican financial consultant nicknamed 'the Popess' inside the tiny city state, secretly taped a dinner he attended in a Rome restaurant.
In a 30-page document given to investigators in Rome and seen by The Times, Becciu alleges that Chaouqui was the mastermind of the alleged entrapment.
