VATICAN CITY
Irish Times
Latest witness tells of electronic bugs, threatening letters and secret meetings
Paddy Agnew in ROME
The more you attend the so-called Vatileaks 2 trial in the Vatican, the more it seems the whole thing has been dreamed up by a Dan Brown wannabe.
For example, when Msgr Alfredo Abbondi, head of office in the Vatican’s prefecture for economic affairs, took to the witness stand for a three-hour long deposition last Saturday, he spoke of “secret services”, “electronic bugs”, “threatening letters” and “secret meetings”.
He even told how a colleague had offered to “break a chair over my back”, while he said the atmosphere in his office was so bad he had asked to be transferred four times.
Vatileaks 2 is the Vatican City State trial which opened last November and in which five people are accused of “illegally procuring” and “successively revealing” confidential Holy See documents.
All those indicted – Spanish Msgr Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, his Italian lay assistant Nicola Maio, lay consultant Francesca Chaouqui and journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi – have been charged under section IX of the Vatican’s “Crimes against the Security of the State”.
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