Vatican defense seeks recusal amid WhatsApp messages in 'trial of the century'

Defense lawyers in the Vatican's appeals trial on Monday asked prosecutor Alessandro Diddi to recuse himself, citing private WhatsApp messages that the defense says reveal a conflict of interest and potential improper conduct. The tribunal president, Archbishop Alejandro Arellano Cedillo, accepted the motions and ordered Diddi to respond within three days, underscoring the unusual publicity surrounding the Vatican's most high-profile financial case.

The case centers on the Vatican's 350 million euro investment in a London property and led to the 2023 conviction of nine people on finance-related charges. Cardinal Angelo Becciu, once a trusted confidant of Pope Francis, was the star defendant before Becciu was fired and accused of financial misconduct. The investigation took a pivotal turn in August 2020 when Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, initially the prime suspect, changed his testimony and aligned with Becciu. Perlasca escaped indictment and became a prosecution witness.

Thousands of pages of WhatsApp texts and audio messages have provided new context to Perlasca’s change of position. They suggest questionable behavior by Vatican police, Diddi, and Pope Francis himself, though the claims remain unverified by independent review. The defense has pointed to conversations between two women, Francesca Chaouqui and Genevieve Ciferri, who allegedly sought to influence Perlasca to implicate Becciu. The material has been used by defense teams to argue that the investigation was compromised from the start and that the defendants could not receive a fair trial in the Vatican, an absolute monarchy where the pope and church leadership exert significant influence over prosecutions.

The existence of the messages first jolted the trial in 2022 when Diddi testified that Ciferri had forwarded him 126 chats exchanged with Chaouqui. Diddi said he entered the messages into evidence but redacted most of them, a move that defense attorneys called a failure to disclose crucial material. After sentencing, Ciferri provided all the chats plus thousands of other exchanges from four years to lawyers for another defendant, and those materials have continued circulating. The additional content shows Diddi had more than 126 chats in 2022 and that Ciferri continued forwarding material to him for several days; Diddi has said he blocked her after the first night, according to the filings.

The defense also cited an audio file that purportedly records Vatican Police Commissioner Stefano De Santis advising Chaouqui on how to frame others when Perlasca was still a suspect. After Perlasca changed his story, he was not prosecuted and instead became an injured party in the trial, later serving as a prosecutor in another Vatican court. The defense argues these elements point to irregular contacts and suggest investigators may have influenced Perlasca’s testimony rather than maintaining strictly neutral proceedings.

During Monday’s hearing in the frescoed Apostolic Palace courtroom, Diddi thanked the defense for the opportunity to respond and said he would use the three-day window to “express my thoughts calmly, in order to dispel the doubts that have arisen in recent months about the conduct of the investigation.” He then left the courtroom as other prosecutors took over. If Diddi does not recuse himself, the matter could proceed before the Vatican Court of Cassation, which is led by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, an American cleric and Francis appointee. Farrell also serves as camerlengo and has been associated with Francis’ broader handling of Vatican governance and prosecutions.

The proceedings underscore the ongoing scrutiny of the Vatican’s financial prosecutions and the church’s efforts to modernize its legal processes while navigating a highly centralized authority structure. As the appeals trial unfolds, observers will be watching closely whether the new disclosures reshape perceptions of fairness and due process in the Holy See’s most ambitious financial case.