Top Vatican Judge Named in Mafia Corruption Probe Declares His Innocence

Giuseppe Pignatone, a former lead judge for the Vatican’s civil tribunal, is under investigation for allegedly helping the Italian mob by halting an investigation shortly after the assassination of two mafia prosecutors.

Knewz.com has learned that the 75-year-old Pignatone, who has since vowed to cooperate with officials, maintains his innocence.

“I declared my innocence on the potential charge of aggravated aiding and abetting,” Pignatone stated .

“I am committed to contributing, within the limits of my abilities, towards investigative efforts of the state attorney’s office of Caltanissetta.”

The collusion Pignatone is being accused of dates back more than three decades and involves the deaths of two law enforcement officials and a business tycoon.

Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino died in separate incidents in 1992—and have since had streets named after them.

Borsellino was assassinated after Falcone and in the interim, launched a probe dubbed Operation Clean Hands into the known mafia figures Antonino Buscemi and Francesco Bonura, and their possible links to a finance mogul by the name of Raul Gardini.

Gardini, aware of the law’s growing interest in his activities died in what appeared to be a suicide a year later.

He was believed to have helped orchestrate contracts between mafia-led interests that encompassed government services.

After the deaths of Gardini, Borsellino, and Buscemi, Gioacchino Natoli – who led the prosecutor’s office where Pignatone was employed as an assistant prosecutor – closed the investigation.

While Pignatone was merely a henchman at the time, he is currently revered in Italy ’s judicial circles.

He was noted to have left Palermo (the capital of Sicily) after the case was closed and made a career out of mafia trials.

He went on to work in Reggio Calabria in the south of the country, where he was promoted to chief prosecutor. During his four-year tenure there, the local emergency hotline received a call and was told of a surprise waiting for Pignatone near the local court .

Said surprise turned out to be bazooka—a clear warning to the mafia prosecutor.

Pignatone’s career would take yet another leap forward when he was employed as chief prosecutor of Rome .

There he launched Mafia Capitale , a tribunal aimed at mafia-government collusion for financial benefit. In the operation, he targeted immigration and sanitary services among others which resulted in the arrests of 40 officials and public servants.

Notably, the late Falcone’s published diaries claimed that he and Pignatone clashed on numerous occasions, and some say that the latter at one point transferred out of the Palermo office because of this.

On another occasion, Falcone recounted Pignatone seeking counsel regarding mafia cases that involved the former with others behind his (Falcone’s) back.

According to CRUX , the Vatican has yet to weigh in on the odium, and Natoli – also being probed by the Italian authorities – has since motivated his actions more than three decades ago by saying that the case was not “penally relevant” at the time.