VATICAN CITY
Telegraph (United Kingdom)
The Pope’s private butler stole a raft of private documents from the Pontiff’s own office as part of a campaign to rid the Vatican of “evil and corruption”, it was claimed on Monday as a judge ordered him to stand trial.
By Nick Pisa, Rome
3:20PM BST 13 Aug 2012
Paolo Gabriele, a 46-year-old father-of-three who had served Benedict XVI for almost six years, will face trial later this year, accused of “aggravated theft”.
It also emerged that Claudio Sciarpelletti, a Vatican IT expert, who works within the Holy See’s Secretariat of State – whose name had not been disclosed before – was charged in connection with the leaking of the documents, although he faces a lesser accusation of aiding and abetting.
The details of the decision by investigating judge Piero Antonio Bonnet were disclosed in a 35 page document which outlined the case against the duo.
According to the document, a 100,000 euro cheque belonging to the Pope was recovered from Mr Gabriele’s apartment during the investigation, as well as a gold nugget and a 1581 Italian translation of Virgil’s classic poem Aeneid by Annibale Caro, both of which were gifts to the Pontiff.
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