From The Guardian:
The Vatican has gone on trial in an English court for the first time, accused of subjecting a British businessman to “incoherent and confused” allegations over a London property deal.
Raffaele Mincione was convicted by a Vatican tribunal last year over the Holy See’s purchase of the former Harrods depository at 60 Sloane Avenue in Chelsea. The Vatican had accused the financier of inflating the price of the property. In proceedings that have been called the Vatican “trial of the century”, Mincione, one of 10 people prosecuted, was sentenced to a five-and-a-half-year jail term by the tribunal for offences that his lawyers claim “seem to be based on a provision of Canon [Catholic] law”. The Vatican said he had been convicted of money laundering in relation to 60 Sloane Avenue, as well as embezzlement and bribery.