Vatican opens new investigation into leaks surrounding its 'trial of the century' probe

ROME -- The Vatican prosecutor has opened a new investigation into the alleged leak of information about its “trial of the century” probe into a London property investment, the Holy See said Tuesday.

The leak emerged during the course of a broader, separate Italian investigation into the actions of a financial police official who is accused of abusively accessing a police database and providing information from it to journalists.

According to Italian media reports, the names of four of the key suspects in the Vatican’s trial were among hundreds of names accessed from the Italian police database. Their data was accessed in July of 2019, right around the time Vatican prosecutors opened their investigation into the London property.

At the time, only a handful of people in the Vatican knew about the investigation, including the pope, the prosecutors’ office and the Vatican gendarmes, many of whom have ties to Italian law enforcement since they worked there before joining the Vatican.

The Vatican’s chief prosecutor, Alessandro Diddi and the head of the city-state’s gendarmes, Gianluca Gauzzi, met Tuesday in Perugia with the Italian chief prosecutor, Raffaele Cantone, who is heading up the broader Italian probe into the database case, according to a Vatican communique.

According to the statement, the reason for the meeting was to agree on launching a collaborative effort in the two, parallel investigations. The Vatican probe, it said, would be into the “alleged abusive accesses made during the course of investigations in the well-known inquiry concerning the purchase of the London building.”

Diddi prosecuted 10 people in connection with the London investment and other financial crimes, and in December the Vatican tribunal convicted nine of them, including the once-powerful Cardinal Angelo Becciu.

The data of four of the other defendants convicted for various charges -- Cecilia Marogna, Raffaele Mincione, Gianluigi Torzi and Fabrizio Tirabassi -- were accessed from the Italian police database, according to La Stampa newspaper and other media reports. They were among hundreds of names that were accessed, including those of top Italian politicians, business, sporting and entertainment figures.

According to the reports, the police official who accessed the information as well as three reporters from the Domani newspaper are under investigation as part of the Perugia probe. The newspaper's 2022 investigative reports on the Italian defense minister triggered the Perugia probe.