Saturday, May 26, 2012

In the Vatican "The Butler Did It"

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Vatican magistrates formally charged Pope Benedict's butler with illegal possession of secret documents on Saturday and said a wider investigation would take place to see if he had any accomplices who helped him leak them.

Paolo Gabriele is suspected of leaking highly sensitive documents, some alleging cronyism and corruption in Vatican contracts, in a scandal which has come to be known as "Vatileaks".

A statement referred to Gabriele, 46, who was until his arrest on Wednesday night serving the pope meals and helping him dress, as "the defendant".

It said a preliminary investigation had been upgraded to a "formal investigation," meaning he had been formally charged, and had chosen two lawyers to defend him.

Because the Vatican has no jail, Gabriele was being held in one of the three so-called "secure rooms" in the offices of the Vatican's tiny police force inside the walled city-state.

The Vatican promised that he would have "all the juridical guarantees foreseen by the criminal code of the State of Vatican City."
Read the rest here.

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