VATICAN CITY
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AFP on May 15, 2016

Vatican City (AFP) – Top cardinal Pietro Parolin and two close associates of Pope Francis have sidestepped giving evidence in the controversial and increasingly embarrassing Vatican trial of five people accused of leaking classified Holy See documents.

Vatican number two Parolin, fellow cardinal Santo Abril y Castello and Archbishop Konrad Krajewski had all been asked to give evidence on behalf of one of the accused, PR consultant Francesca Chaouqui.

The three clerics invoked an article of the Vatican’s penal code which allows them to decline to testify for professional reasons.

Parolin said in a statement to the latest hearing in the case on Saturday that he had done so because he had “nothing to say regarding the relations between Francesca Chaouqui and (co-accused Spanish priest) Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda”, specialist Vatican news agency IMedia reported.

Chaouqui, Balda and his assistant…