VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider
Paolo Gabriele has implicated the Holy See’s police force in the Vatileaks trial
Alessandro Speciale
Vatican City
It is not just the allegations of mistreatment made by Paolo Gabriele against Vatican policemen (he claims he was treated inhumanely during his first few weeks of detention in a Vatican security cell) that have raised questions about the Vatican Gendarmerie’s conduct.
During the second hearing of the Vatileaks trial on Tuesday, the Vatican Gendarmerie – the police force of the world’s smallest State – came under the spotlight on more than one occasion because of doubts regarding its investigation methods.
The Vatican Gendarmerie was founded in 1971 and is staffed by Italian citizens. It is led by Domenico Giani, a former Italian secret services agent. Giani is the man responsible for the investigations into and arrest of Paolo Gabriele and is at the centre of some confidential documents which Gabriele leaked to the press. Particularly that “defamatory libel” – as the Vatican Promoter of Justice, Nicola Picardi called it – which ended up in one of the chapters of Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi’s book “Sua Santità” (“His Holiness”).
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