Pope Francis faces a U.N. investigation for allegedly authorizing illegal wiretappings of phones during the Vatican embezzlement trial linked to the sale of luxury London real estate.
The Telegraph reported on Sunday that lawyers of British financier Raffaele Mincione, who is accused of defrauding the Vatican in a London real estate deal, filed a complaint to the United Nations for alleged human rights abuses committed by the Pope during the trial.
During the Vatican embezzlement trial, which began in 2021, reports emerged that the Roman Pontiff authorized phone wiretaps during investigations into the financial scandal.
The New York Post pointed out that in April 2021 Pope Francis amended Vatican law to facilitate prosecutions for cardinals and bishops.
The Telegraph report states that Mincione is appealing his conviction by the Vatican court "On the basis that he was actually cleared of the criminal offences from the original indictment and only convicted of new offences introduced at the 11th hour and based on the Vatican's canonical - religious, not criminal - law."
The Vatican embezzlement trial involving Mincione, Cardinal Becciu, and other defendants chiefly centered on a Vatican property investment in London, which Becciu authorized as Substitute for General Affairs at the Vatican Secretariat of State.
As controversy and scandal grew around the property in late 2020, the Vatican initiated its own corruption investigation into Becciu's dealings in late 2020 - by which time he was prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and had been since 2018.
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