VATICAN CITY
Yahoo! News
Vatican City (AFP) – Two journalists and three Vatican officials go on trial Tuesday over the publication of classified documents in a case critics have attacked as having a whiff of the inquisition.
All five accused face potential jail time of up to eight years for obtaining and disclosing confidential papers “concerning the fundamental interests of the Vatican State”.
The unprecedented prosecution of journalists — who say they were only doing their job — is being pursued under punitive legislation introduced in 2013.
The law was rushed through a year after Pope Benedict XVI’s butler leaked damaging information about Vatican in-fighting which plunged the Holy See into crisis and, it is widely believed, contributed to the pontiff’s decision to retire.
Spanish priest Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, Italian PR expert Francesca Chaouqui and a third Vatican official, Nicola Maio, are charged with criminal association in order to obtain the documents and then divulging them to the press.
Journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi are accused of illegal disclosure and putting pressure on the Vatican officials, particularly Vallejo Balda, to obtain documents which they used as material for books depicting financial irregularities and uncontrolled spending in the Holy See.
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