(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 18 - Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the highest-ranking Catholic cleric to be charged with financial crimes, told journalists outside his trial Friday that he had given funds to a youth social cooperative rather than, as accused, to family members in Sardinia.
    He said he was proud to have funded the SPES Cooperative, which he said employs 60 young people including ex drug addicts, former prisoners and youths with health problems.
    He again denied sending money to relatives via the Ozieri branch of the Catholic charity Caritas.
    Finance police staged a series of searches on Tuesday to seize evidence in relation to a money laundering probe by prosecutors in the Sardinian city of Sassari regarding bodies linked to friends and relatives of Cardinal Becciu that received funds from the Vatican Bank and Italian Bishops Conference CEI.
    The searches took place in Rome and in the towns of Ozieri, Pattada and Bono, in the province of Sassari.
    Becciu is among 10 people on trial in the Vatican in relation to the loss-making acquisition of a London property on Sloane Avenue when he was the Substitute for General Affairs in the Secretariat of State.
    He resigned as head of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in 2020 when the scandal regarding the property deal broke.
    (ANSA).