5 indicted in Vatican leaks case
November 23, 2015
p>At a first hearing on November 24, a Vatican court rejected a motion to dismiss criminal charges against a journalist who published leaked confidential documents.
Emiliano Fittipaldi, one of five defendants in the ‘Vatileaks II’ case, argued that he was merely doing his job as a journalist by publishing information that had been provided to him. Fittipaldi also complained that the criminal charged against him are so vague that he cannot defend himself. A Vatican prosecutor, Roberto Zannotti, countered that the criminal charged were not an attempt to curb press freedom but a result of “illicit behavior’ by journalists and their sources.
Fittipaldi and another journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi, are charged with “soliciting and exercising pressure’ on Vatican employees to obtain confidential documents. The other three defendants—Msgr. Angel Lucio Vallejo Balda, Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, and Nicola Maio—are charged with forming a criminal association to obtain the documents and provide them to the journalists. All three were associated with a commission formed by Pope Francis to suggest reforms in the Vatican’s financial affairs.
Several international journalists’ groups have issued statements criticizing the Vatican for bringing criminal charges against reporters. In his argument at the November 24 hearing, Fittipaldi pointed out that the right of reporters to publish the news is protected by the European Convention on Human Rights and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights—both documents that the Vatican has endorsed. Fittipaldi and Nuzzi have said they feel confident that, even if they are found guilty by the Vatican tribunal, the Italian government would not approve an extradition request, since Italy protects the freedom of the press.
Msgr. Balda, who is still being held in a Vatican detention cell, has not made a public comment on the charges against him. But Chaouqui has insisted that she is innocent of wrongdoing. She wrote on her Facebook page: “Maybe it won’t do any good, but I’ll fight like a lion so that the truth emerges.”
The trial will continue on Monday, November 30.
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Further information:
- Comunicato della Sala Stampa della Santa Sede, 21.11.2015 (Holy See Press Office)
- 5 charged in Vatican document leak case (Vatican Radio)
- Vatican indicts five for leaks (Crux)
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