• The Pope names Giuseppe Pignatone president of the Vatican Tribunal
  • Vatican, State Secretariat of AIF: 5 executives suspended

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26 November 2019 "It is the first time that the pot has been uncovered from the inside out not from outside". The Pope said this on the plane returning from Tokyo, talking about the new financial scandal. "From the outside so many times. But in this Pope Benedict was wise, a process has begun that has matured and now the institutions" work so much that "the Auditor had the courage to make a written complaint against five people. The Auditor is working. "I really don't want to offend the Egmont group, which does so much good and helps, but in this case sovereignty belongs to the state, even justice is more sovereign than executive power."

"There is a presumption of corruption", short-term interrogations
Regarding the financial scandal in the Vatican there is "a presumption" of the crime of "corruption" and "in these days the interrogations will begin, or have begun," says the Pontiff emphasizing, however, that the complaint "did not come from outside" . Bergoglio also reported that "interrogations will begin soon". Francesco said that the Auditor had informed him that "something is wrong". And the Pope himself invited him to "report to the Promoter Justice" and "I signed the authorizations for the searches". "The search was carried out in five offices, and today even though there is a presumption of innocence - Pope Francis said while talking to journalists - there are the capitals that are not well managed, and there is also corruption "I believe that in less than a month there will be interrogations of the five people who were blocked because there were indications of corruption. Can you tell me but these five are corrupt? No, presumption is a guarantee for all, a human right, but there is corruption and it shows. With searches you will see if they are guilty or not ".

Palace in London? It does things that don't seem clean
"They did things that do not seem clean," said Bergoglio, speaking of the "scandal" of buying the building in London with the money from St. Peter's Obolo. Investing money is part of "good administration" while "putting money in a drawer" is not.

Director Aif suspended, suspected maladministration
The Vatican's Financial Intelligence Authority is suspected of not having "done its duty to monitor" and "the director of the AIF is suspended because there were suspicions of bad administration", the Pope told reporters returning from Tokyo, expressing a strong criticism at the top of the internal anti-money laundering organization: "The president of the AIF - he said, speaking of René Brulhart who resigned and will be replaced perhaps tomorrow - has made strength with the Egmont group ( the informal coordination of the anti-money laundering Authorities, ed) to resume documentation ". But "justice before a charge of corruption is sovereign in a country, no one can get involved". "The Egmont group is a private group", but it is Moneyval, he added, referring to the Council of Europe's financial control body, to do "the inspection. He scheduled it for the first months of next year and will do it ".