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Perilous Times
24 May 2012 Last updated at 17:25 ET
Head of Vatican Bank is sacked for corruption
Mr Tedeschi is under investigation for suspected money-laundering
BBC - The director of the Vatican Bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, has
been removed from his post for dereliction of duty, the Vatican
says.
The bank's board of directors unanimously passed a no-confidence
vote in Mr Gotti Tedeschi, a statement said.
It said he had failed "to carry out duties of primary importance",
but it did not elaborate.
In 2010 Italian police launched an investigation against Mr Gotti
Tedeschi as part of a money-laundering inquiry.
Members of the board believed Mr Gotti Tedeschi's dismissal was
needed to "maintain the vitality of the bank", the Vatican
statement said.
The board will now look for a new director to restore relations
with the international financial community, "based on mutual
respect for accepted international banking standards".
Mr Gotti Tedeschi declined to comment on his dismissal. He told
journalists: "I'd rather say nothing, otherwise I'd say ugly
things."
Transparency
But in remarks to the Reuters news agency, he said: "I have paid
for my transparency."
The moves comes as Moneyval, the Council of Europe body tasked
with counteracting money laundering, prepares to rule at the
beginning of July on whether the Vatican meets international
standards on financial transactions.
Memos leaked earlier this year suggest there are serious
differences among Vatican officials over how far to go in ensuring
financial transparency, according to media reports.
The Vatican Bank, known officially as the Institute for Religious
Works (IOR), was created during World War II to administer
accounts held by religious orders, cardinals, bishops and priests.
It lost £250m in a scandal involving the collapse of one of
Italy's biggest private banks - the Banco Ambrosiano - in 1982,
with which it had close ties.
The Vatican Bank has been headed by Mr Gotti Tedeschi, 62, a
trained economist, since 2009.
When Mr Gotti Tedeschi was placed under investigation in 2010, the
Vatican said it was "perplexed and astonished", and expressed full
confidence in Mr Tedeschi.
It said the matter was the result of a misunderstanding, and that
none of its employees were involved in any wrongdoing.
As part of the inquiry, Italian tax police seized 23m euros ($29m,
£18.4m) that the Vatican Bank had tried to transfer from a small
Italian bank called Credito Artigiano.
A month later, the Vatican set up a new financial authority to
combat money laundering and make its financial operations more
transparent, ahead of an EU deadline.
The move was aimed at winning inclusion in the European
Commission's "white list" of states which comply with
international standards against tax fraud and money-laundering.