ROME
DFW Catholic
Rome, Italy, Aug 7, 2013 / 09:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican’s judicial authorities have requested that their Italian counterparts interrogate Monsignor Nunzio Scarano about withdraws he made from his Vatican bank account, putting a brand new agreement between the two countries to its first test.
The request to have the Italian authorities question the monsignor was made last week by Giampiero Milano, the Promoter of Justice for the Vatican Court, just days after the two countries signed an pact to exchange information related to the prevention of money laundering.
Msgr. Scarano is currently being held in an Italian jail for allegedly planning to smuggle 20 million euros ($26 million) from Switzerland to Italy aboard an Italian government airplane.
He is also being investigated by the public prosecutor in his home town of Salerno, Italy for supposedly laundering 560,000 euros ($744,000) that he took from his account at the Institute for Religious Works – the so-called Vatican bank – to pay off the mortgage of a house in Salerno.
This second case led the Vatican authorities to freeze Msgr. Scarano’s funds on July 9 and suspend him from his job in early June. The case against Msgr. Scarano, a suspended accountant for the Administration for the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, first became public June 28 when he was arrested by the Italian authorities for the smuggling attempt.
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