VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider
An accomplice was named by the investigating magistrate. The information had so far been kept secret; the suspect is not a member of the clergy, but a computer expert, employee of the Secretariat of State
Marco Tosatti
Rome
Paolo Gabriele, the pope’s butler will be prosecuted for having stolen a large number of confidential documents and leaking them to the press. But in the bill of indictment, an accomplice was named by the investigating magistrate, a man whose identity had so far been kept secret, a lay employee of the Secretariat of State and computer expert. What is now clear, despite the Vatican magistrates’ efforts to limit the scale of the issue to legal aspects, is that the shadow of a conspiracy looms over the Vatican, a conspiracy involving a number of people, who together with Paolo Gabriele, handled and exchanged documents or even provided them for him.
Who are these people? Unfortunately the bill of indictment that commits Gabriele for trial does not mention names, only capital letters, X,W,Y, that are all linked to witnesses questioned during the preliminary investigation.
Claudio Sciarpelletti, 48 years old, employee of the Secretariat of State is the “new entry” of the enquiry. An envelope addressed to Paolo Gabriele, bearing the seal of the Secretariat of State- Information and Documents office and containing confidential documents, was found on his desk. Sciarpelletti said: “This envelope was not given to me by Paolo Gabriele, but by W in order for me to keep it and deliver it to Paolo Gabriele”. It seems that some time ago Gabriele had asked Sciarpelletti to introduce him to W and through him also meet Y, another unknown person who is obviously connected to the Secretariat of State and the Curia. Sciarpelletti had therefore been passing envelopes from W to Gabriele and vice versa. Another unknown person, X, apparently gave Sciarpelletti an envelope for Gabriele: “X thought of me and entrusted me with the envelope because of my acquaintances within the Secretariat of the Holy Father. Moreover when this happened Paolo Gabriele was present and accompanied me”.
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