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Vatican’s leaks trial resumes, first testimony expected Vatican monsignor admits to passing documents in trial
(about 13 hours later)
VATICAN CITY — Sparks may fly this week with the first testimony in the Vatican’s controversial trial over leaks of confidential documents that revealed waste, mismanagement and greed in the Catholic Church’s hierarchy. VATICAN CITY — A Vatican monsignor admitted in court Monday that he passed confidential Holy See documents on to journalists but said he did so at a time when he feared for his life after a friendship with a woman turned sour.
Two journalists face up to eight years in prison if convicted of putting pressure on a Vatican monsignor to obtain the documents and publish them. The monsignor and two other people affiliated with a papal reform commission are also on trial, accused of giving the journalists the information. Monsignor Angelo Lucio Vallejo Balda, a former high-ranking official in the Vatican’s finance office, was the first defendant called to testify in the Vatican’s controversial trial over leaked documents. In addition to Vallejo, the two journalists, the woman and Vallejo’s secretary are on trial.
The trial resumes Monday after a three-month delay to give the defense time to prepare and experts time to go through text message and other evidence. Earlier, the Vatican had come under sharp criticism that it was rushing the trial and that the defendants weren’t getting a fair shake. Under repeated questioning from the chief prosecutor and the tribunal president, Vallejo confessed that he passed documents to journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi.
During hearings Monday and Tuesday, the first of the five defendants is expected to be questioned by Vatican prosecutors. The testimony may be uncomfortable for the Holy See, given that details are expected about the onetime close friendship between Monsignor Angelo Lucio Vallejo Balda and the lone woman on trial, Francesca Chaouqui, who is now pregnant. “Yes, I passed documents,” he said. “I did it spontaneously, probably not fully lucid.”
Media rights groups from around the world, meanwhile, have denounced the prosecution of journalists Emiliano Fittipaldi and Gianlugi Nuzzi, who wrote blockbuster books last year detailing the resistance Pope Francis is facing in trying to clean up waste and corruption in the Vatican. “I was convinced I was in a situation without exit,” he said.
Fittipaldi’s book “Avarice,” and Nuzzi’s book “Merchants in the Temple,” detailed millions of euros in lost potential rental income from the Vatican’s real estate holdings, millions in missing inventory from the Vatican’s tax-free stores, the exorbitant costs for getting someone declared a saint, and the greed of bishops and cardinals lusting after huge apartments. Fittipaldi’s book “Avarice,” and Nuzzi’s book “Merchants in the Temple,” detailed millions of euros in lost potential rental income from the Vatican’s real estate holdings, millions in missing inventory from the Vatican’s tax-free stores, the exorbitant costs for getting someone declared a saint and the greed of bishops and cardinals lusting after huge apartments.
After a technical, closed-door hearing Saturday, Fittipaldi noted that the Vatican and its officials have already taken action to make amends. The books were based on documents produced by a reform commission Pope Francis appointed in 2013 to get a handle on the Vatican’s financial holdings and propose reforms so that more money could be devoted to the poor. Vallejo was the commission’s No. 2; Francesca Chaouqui was a member and outside public relations expert; and the fifth defendant, Nicola Maio, was Vallejo’s assistant.
Just last week, Francis imposed new transparency rules on the Vatican’s saint-making machine to prevent the types of abuses revealed in the books. A few weeks before that, Francis’ top financial adviser admitted under oath that he should have done more to report priestly sex abusers in his native Australia. And finally, the Vatican’s retired No. 2 recently paid back 150,000 euros ($167,000) to the Vatican’s pediatric hospital after Fittipaldi revealed that it had paid for his house renovations. Vallejo admitted that he gave Nuzzi a five-page list of some 87 passwords to access the reform commission’s password-protected emails. But he said he did so after becoming certain that his email account had already been entered and that Nuzzi had already obtained the documents.
“In the U.S, the investigative journalists of ‘Spotlight’ won the Pulitzer (Prize) and their story got an Oscar,” Fittipaldi tweeted recently. “In Italy and the Vatican, they’re put on trial.” He also admitted to exchanging text messages with Fittipaldi about providing him with other documents.
Fittipaldi and Nuzzi’s books were based on documents produced by the reform commission Francis appointed in 2013 to get a handle on the Vatican’s financial holdings and propose reforms so that more money could be devoted to the poor. Balda was the commission’s No. 2; Chaouqui was a member and outside public relations expert; and the fifth defendant, Nicola Maio, was Balda’s assistant. Chaouqui introduced him to both journalists, he said.
Francis has already said Chaouqui’s nomination to the reform committee was a mistake. Chaouqui, a tweeting, name-dropping media sensation, has portrayed herself as a martyr and insisted she’s done nothing wrong. On Saturday, she posted a photo on her Facebook page of Giordano Bruno, the 16th-century friar who was tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition and burned at the stake. Vallejo acknowledged that he had somewhat fallen for Chaouqui, saying he felt “compromised” as a priest after one evening when she entered his hotel room in Florence. Vallejo’s lawyer said Chaouqui had a “seductive personality.”
The Spanish-born Balda back in a Vatican jail cell after violating the terms of his house arrest. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the Opus Dei-affiliated Balda had had communications with the outside world and was sent back last week to the Vatican cell where he spent the first months of his detention. But over three hours of testimony in his native Spanish, Vallejo explained how he increasingly became terrorized by Chaouqui, saying she and her husband sent increasingly aggressive and threatening text messages especially after the reform commission wrapped up in 2015 and Chaouqui was left without work.
Nuzzi and Fittipaldi remain free and are expected to appear in court. They are Italian citizens and any sentence would presumably involve an extradition request. Both have said they believed no Italian judge would extradite them given the free-speech protections journalists enjoy in Italy. Vallejo said he ascertained with “moral certainty” that Chaouqui mingled in a “dangerous world” of Italian power brokers and had ulterior interests. He testified that she repeatedly told him she worked for Italy’s secret services and once claimed to be arranging a meeting for a visiting U.S. President Barack Obama.
Vallejo said when he decided to cut her off, “I felt as if my physical safety was in danger.”
Chaouqui is now pregnant, and attended the court session sitting against a fluffy pillow and frequently getting up to stretch.
Nuzzi and Fittipaldi face up to eight years in prison if convicted of putting pressure on Vallejo to obtain the documents and publish them. Vallejo, Chaouqui and Maio are accused of forming a criminal organization and providing the documents.
The questioning continues Tuesday.
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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfieldFollow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.