VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (UK)
But Vatican judges acquitted an aide and said they did not have jurisdiction to try Italian journalists
A Vatican court, citing freedom of the press, has acquitted two journalists who published confidential documents while their source, a Spanish monsignor, was sentenced to 18 months in jail.
Judge Giuseppe Della Torre, head of the tribunal of the Vatican City State, declared that the court had no legitimate jurisdiction over Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi.
The court found Mgr Lucio Vallejo Balda, secretary of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, and Francesca Chaouqui, a member of the former Pontifical Commission for Reference on the Economic-Administrative Structure of the Holy See, guilty of having roles in the leaking of confidential documents about Vatican finances.
Finding the Spanish monsignor guilty of actually stealing and passing on secret documents, the court sentenced him to serve jail time. The judges determined that Chaouqui’s role was one of encouraging the leak and they gave her a 10-month suspended sentence.
Nicola Maio, Mgr Vallejo Balda’s former assistant, was found not guilty and acquitted of all charges.
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