VATICAN CITY
Yahoo! News
Angus MacKinnon
AFP
March 17, 2016
Vatican City (AFP) – The Vatican’s controversial trial of journalists and others was adjourned Thursday until next month as a new account emerged of an alleged night of sex and secrets between two of the accused.
The adjournment until April 6 was announced by the Vatican after one of the five accused, PR consultant Francesca Chaouqui, who is six months pregnant, was advised to rest by doctors.
Chaouqui, a former member of an economic reform commission established by Pope Francis, is accused of conspiring with Spanish Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda and his assistant to leak documents which revealed serious irregularities in Vatican spending.
Vallejo Balda admitted in court on Monday to handing over files and passwords to two reporters who are also on trial.
But he said he did so under duress having been effectively blackmailed by his female colleague, with whom he claims to have had a sexually charged relationship culminating in a “compromising” encounter in a Florence hotel.
Chaouqui, who is married, has categorically denied having sex with the cleric.
In her version of the night in Florence, published on her Facebook page on Wednesday, she implies Vallejo Balda had confided in her about a previous gay encounter or relationship.
“He told me something in confidence, something he said only I knew,” she wrote.
“I stayed, I listened. I cried with him. I understood what he was going through, as a man and as a priest.
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