VATICAN CITY
Sun Herald
By HANNS-JOCHEN KAFFSACK — dpa
VATICAN CITY — A Vatican court on Monday rejected a request from defense lawyers that the charges brought against a computer technician, accused of aiding and abetting Pope Benedict XVI’s former butler in leaking confidential papal documents to the press, be dropped.
In an opening hearing largely devoted to procedural matters, Gianluca Benedetti, the lawyer of Claudio Sciarpelletti, argued that his client had no motive for committing the crime as he was not a personal friend of the butler, Paolo Gabriele, as the prosecution has charged.
Sciarpelletti has been accused of providing contradictory explanations as to how he came into possession of material that was eventually published in a chapter of a book, “Sua Santita” (“His Holiness”), which exposed infighting within the Vatican hierarchy.
The chapter in question, titled “Neapoleon at the Vatican,” refers to alleged conflicts of interest involving the Vatican gendarmerie.
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