Trial testimony: Vatican wanted to pay off London broker

By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The former head of the Vatican’s financial watchdog has testified that the agency launched an intelligence investigation into a suspicious London real estate deal after it learned about it. But he said the agency had no power to stop the Vatican secretariat of state from concluding it.  The testimony Tuesday by defendant Rene Bruelhart in the Vatican’s fraud and extortion trial again put the spotlight on Pope Francis and the No. 2 in the secretariat of state, Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra. Bruelhart said Pena Parra made it clear the deal had to be concluded “under any circumstances.”  The Vatican’s payment of 15 million euros to an Italian broker to get full ownership of the London building is at the heart of the trial.