René Brülhart
René Brülhart (born 1972) is a Swiss lawyer from Fribourg,[1] who served as the President of the Board of Directors of the Financial Information Authority (AIF) of Vatican City. He was the first lay person serving in this position.[2]
Brühlhart was raised in Düdingen and studied law at the University of Fribourg between 1993 and 1997.[3] Before being nominated President of the AIF by Pope Francis on 19 November 2014, he served as the director of the same institution since November 2012 (nominated by Pope Benedict XVI). From 2004 to 2012 he headed Liechtenstein's financial intelligence unit which was elected by the Plenary to act as Vice-Chair of the Egmont group from 2010 to 2012.[4]
On November 18, 2019, Brülhart officially stepped down as head of the AIF week after Vatican police raided his office due to an ongoing corruption scandal[5] Pope Francis acknowledged the investigation during an interview on November 26, 2019 and stated that interrogations have been taking place as well. November 27, 2019, another lay person, the former head of the Bank of Italy's Supervision Office Carmelo Barbagallo,[6] was appointed by Pope Francis to succeed Brülhart.[6]
References
- ^ "Vatican Hires Rene Bruelhart, Liechtenstein Anti-Money Laundering Guru". Huffington Post. November 9, 2012. Retrieved 20 November 2014.
- ^ "Schlechte Investments, noch schlechtere Kontrolle – der Vatikan erlebt einen Finanzskandal und einen Machtkampf". Neue Zürcher Zeitung. November 25, 2019. Retrieved 25 November 2019.
- ^ Minder, Andreas (April 2014). "Ein heisser Stuhl im Vatikan" (PDF). Universitas (in German). University of Fribourg: 28–30. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
- ^ "Financial Information Authority Appoints New Director and Executive". Vatican Information Service. 7 November 2012. Retrieved 16 January 2013.
- ^ https://www.ft.com/content/2dc7bf84-0a17-11ea-b2d6-9bf4d1957a67On
- ^ a b https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2019-11/pope-francis-appoints-carmelo-barbagallo-to-head-aif.html