VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service
[SENTENZA DEL TRIBUNALE DELLO STATO DELLA CITTÀ DEL VATICANO NEL PROCEDIMENTO PENALE A CARICO DEL SIGNOR GABRIELE PAOLO]
Vatican City, (VIS) – Made public today was the full text of the sentence issued by the Tribunal of Vatican City State on 6 October, in which Paolo Gabriele was declared guilty of aggravated theft.
On 6 October Paolo Gabriele had been sentenced to imprisonment for a period of three years although, in view of his “lack of a criminal record, his record of service in the period prior to the facts in question, the subjective (though mistaken) belief identified by the accused as the motive for his conduct, as well as his own statement of his awareness of having betrayed the trust of the Holy Father, the Tribunal reduced the sentence to imprisonment for one (1) year and six (6) months, and ordered the guilty party to defray the costs of the trial”.
In a briefing held this morning Holy See Press Office Director Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J. explained some aspects of the sentence. He began by noting that it focused on the offence of stealing documents, and in particular the originals of documents, and took no account of other objects such as a nugget of gold, a cheque in the Holy Father’s name and a sixteenth-century copy of “The Aeneid”, because there were doubts about the way in which the search during which they were found had been carried out, and Gabriele’s guilt was not proven.
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