Two journalists and three Vatican officials went on trial on Tuesday over the publication of classified documents in a case critics have attacked as having a whiff of the inquisition.
Two journalists and three Vatican officials went on trial on Tuesday over the publication of classified documents in a case critics have attacked as having a whiff of the inquisition.
The hearing opened just after 10.30 am and was initially expected to be devoted to procedural issues. All five accused face up to eight years in jail for obtaining and disclosing confidential papers “concerning the fundamental interests of the Vatican State”.
The unprecedented prosecution of journalists Emiliano Fittipaldi and Gianluigi Nuzzi — who say they were only doing their job — is being pursued under punitive legislation introduced in 2013.
The law was rushed through a year after Pope Benedict XVI’s butler leaked damaging information about in-fighting in the Vatican.
Mr Nuzzi said there was an interest “in deflecting attention from the embarrassing content — embarrassing for some people and not the Church,” as he arrived at the Vatican.
Spanish priest Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, Italian PR expert Francesca Chaouqui and a third Vatican official, Nicola Maio, are charged with criminal association in order to obtain the documents and then divulging them to the press.
