VATICAN CITY
The Local
Published: 14 Mar 2016
A controversial Vatican trial of journalists and alleged whistleblowers resumes on Monday, in the latest instalment of an image-bruising legal saga.
The spicy courtroom drama has already served up claims of sexually charged scheming, blackmail and computer hacking behind the fortified walls of the secretive city state.
From Monday, lawyers on both sides of a case increasingly seen as a public relations own goal will be able to put some of Pope Francis’s closest aides on the stand.
The trial has been adjourned for three months to enable computer experts to recover deleted email, text and WhatsApp messages between some of the accused, one of whom is basing her defence on a claim that she was working on the pope’s behalf.
Francesca Chaouqui, a pregnant former PR adviser to the Vatican, is one of five people accused of leaking classified documents that revealed out-of-control spending at the top of the Catholic Church and some top clerics’ love of luxury.
She has been granted the right to call as witnesses Vatican number two Cardinal Pietro Parolin and two Francis confidantes, charity supremo Archbishop Konrad Krajewski and Cardinal Santo Abril y Castello, who heads a panel overseeing the scandal-hit Vatican bank.
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