The chief judge of the Vatican City’s tribunal has declared his innocence after being named in a corruption probe by Italian authorities in Sicily.
Giuseppe Pignatone has served as a judge in Vatican City since 2019, before which he worked as one of Italy’s most prominent anti-mafia public prosecutors in Rome and Sicily.
The judge was named in an investigation by prosecutors in Caltanissetta, Sicily, in connection with an alleged conspiracy to drop and cover up a mafia-related investigation in the early 1990s, local authorities announced July 31.
“I declared my innocence on the potential charge of aggravated aiding and abetting,” Pignatone said July 31 while appearing in court to answer questions. “I am committed to contributing, within the limits of my abilities, towards investigative efforts of the state attorney's office of Caltanissetta.”
The Vatican has, so far, made no statement on the news that the city state’s top judge is under criminal investigation.
Prosecutors in Sicily, where Pignatone worked as a deputy public prosecutor for three decades, are investigating the circumstances around the shutting down and suppression of a 1992 investigation into alleged corruption in the awarding of local government procurement contracts, with public officials suspected of steering state business to mafia-linked or owned businesses.
Gioacchino Natoli, another former head of the public prosecutor’s office in Palermo, and Stefano Screpanti, a general in the Guardia di Finanza, are also under investigation.
That investigation was launched by Paolo Borsellino, who along with Giovanni Falcone formed a famous anti-mafia prosecuting duo in Sicily before both men were assassinated in separate incidents that same year. The investigation was quickly closed down that same year by Natoli, in whose office Pignatone worked at the time.
Raul Gardini died in 1993 by apparent suicide, though many have suggested he was murdered by the mafia to prevent him from speaking to authorities.
Natoli has said he considered the investigation’s preliminary results but found nothing “criminally relevant” and so decided to shut it down. The current investigation into that decision is considering the possibility that the 1992 case was closed to favor mafia affiliates.
In court Wednesday, both Natoli and Pignatone exercised their right not to answer questions, though both gave statements to the press.
After spending 30 years in Sicily, Pignatone moved to work as a prosecutor in Calabria where he was head of the regional anti-mafia task force, and then Rome, where he made a name for himself as a high-profile anti-mafia prosecutor, scoring major convictions in the so-called Mafia Capitale cases related to corruption in the awarding of city contracts.
His arrival as a judge in the Vatican in 2019 was heralded as a boost to the city state’s judicial system and efforts to boost financial reform and anti-corruption efforts.
He presided over the landmark financial crimes trial from 2021 to 2023 which led to the conviction of Cardinal Angelo Becciu and several other former officials and advisors to the Secretariat of State. That case is currently being heard at appeal.
Pignatone was also the lead judge in the wrongful dismissal lawsuit brought in 2022 by Libero Milone, the former auditor general of the Vatican. Pignatone dismissed the suit in January of this year.
That case is also being heard at appeal.
