Vatican Trial Begins over Leaked Documents

By Elisabetta Povoledo
New York Times
November 24, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/world/europe/vatican-trial-begins-over-leaked-documents.html?_r=0

Gianluigi Nuzzi, center, with Emiliano Fittipaldi, right, the two authors put on trial on Tuesday by the Vatican, leaving the court after the trial was adjourned until next Monday.

Five people, including two Italian journalists, went on trial in a Vatican courtroom on Tuesday on charges of illegally procuring and circulating confidential documents that were used to write two tell-all books detailing suspected mismanagement and corruption at the Vatican.

The Vatican claims that by taking the documents, the defendants violated the “fundamental interests of the Holy See and the State,” language it used in a formal indictment issued on Saturday. The two journalists counter that the Vatican is violating their right to freedom of the press.

“We are not martyrs, we are investigative journalists, and some principles must be defended,” one of the defendants, Gianluigi Nuzzi, the author of “Merchants in the Temple,” told the small pool of reporters allowed into the Vatican courtroom on Tuesday. “We just did our job.”

The defendants face up to eight years in prison.

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“Journalists should be allowed to carry out their role as watchdog and investigate alleged wrongdoing without fear of repercussions,” Nina Ognianova, Europe and Central Asia Coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement on Monday.

The two books were published this month. They offer detailed evidence of mismanagement, greed and financial irregularities in the Vatican and chronicle the difficulties that Pope Francis has faced in trying to push through reforms to remedy the problems.

Three other three defendants — Francesca Chaouqui, a public-relations consultant; Msgr. Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda; and Monsignor Vallejo Balda’s assistant, Nicola Maio — were members of a now-defunct commission set up by Pope Francis to help draft changes for the Vatican’s financial dealings. Vatican prosecutors say that the three of them provided some of the documents and information that ended up in the two books.

All five defendants were in court on Tuesday.

As the proceedings began, Mr. Fittipaldi read a statement to the four-judge court, formally challenging its right to put him on trial. He pointed out that in Italy, the right to publish news — as long as it is truthful and not defamatory — is guaranteed by the Constitution as well as the European Convention on Human Rights.

Lawyers for the defendants said that with the formal indictment filed only on Saturday, they did not have sufficient time to prepare for the case.

Roberto Zannotti, an assistant prosecutor for the Vatican, countered that the court was not challenging freedom of the press, but rather how the information was obtained.

After deliberating for 45 minutes, the judges rejected Mr. Fittipaldi’s motion to dismiss the charges against him, and adjourned the court until Monday.