Reuters – Francesca Chaouqui walks to her her trial at the Vatican
Three people on trial in the Vatican over the “Vatileaks” scandal could face years in prison if convicted.
Vatican prosecutors have demanded heavy jail terms for three of those trial, however one reporter could escape conviction because of a lack of evidence.
Prosecutors have demanded the longest sentence, three years and nine months, for Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, 35, a public relations expert and former member of the Vatican finances commission appointed by Pope Francis to clean up Vatican finances shortly after election.
She arrived at court carrying her new-born baby son, just a few weeks old, who she is still breast-feeding.
On her Facebook page she wrote: “They have asked for THREE YEARS AND NINE months for me, not on the charge of delivering documents (there was no proof) but the accusation that I designed and inspired the leak of the documents.”
She said this had “the venom of revenge”.
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“Wait until the summing up by my lawyer. For the rest I defer to the righteousness of God. The righteousness of the world has failed.”
Prosecutors asked for just three years and one month for Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, a priest whose behaviour was desribed as “the most serious” but who is being shown more leniency because of an “admission of guilt”. He is being held on remand in prison in the Vatican.
For his former associate, Nicola Maio, they have asked for one year and nine months in prison, “in view of the limited role he played in the affair.”
At one point during the trial, Chaouqui was accused of seducing the priest.
The proceedings have been criticised in Rome as an attack on freedom of the press.
Verdicts are expected tomorrow or on Thursday.
Two journalists, Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, who published books based on documents that it is alleged they got from Chaouqui and Balda, have also been on trial.
“I’m sure we’ll all be convicted,” Chaouqui wrote on Facebook. “They will speak words of hatred, they will ask that I be condemned for a crime that I did not commit. I will listen in silence with Pietro Elijah Antonio [her son] in my arms. I will take him because this trial has also been an ordeal for him.”
AFP reported that one of the most striking revelations from the leaks was that less than 20 per cent of donations made by believers around the world under the Peter’s Pence scheme ended up being spent on good works. The rest was swallowed up by the Vatican bureaucracy, partly subsidising the luxurious lifestyles of some cardinals in Rome.
