VATICAN CITY
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)
Italian journalists Emiliano Fittipaldi and Gianluigi Nuzzi, along with three former Vatican officials, have gone on trial charged with criminal misappropriation, among other offenses, in the wake of a Vatican leaks scandal.
A first hearing against the five defendants, who are charged with unauthorized disclosure of secret financial information, took place at the Court of the State of Vatican City on Tuesday morning.
Fittipaldi and Nuzzi are accused of making public confidential documents exposing alleged financial mismanagement in the Holy See in their recent books Merchants in the Temple and Avarice.
Vatican authorities had arrested Spanish priest Monsignor Angelo Lucio Vallejo Balda, his secretary Nicola Maio, and PR expert Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui on Nov. 2 on suspicion of leaking the confidential information, including letters and wiretapped conversations, to journalists Fittipaldi and Nuzzi. …
Media commentators have commented that the charges made the Vatican look vengeful and draw even more attention to the observations and allegations in Nuzzi’s and Fittipaldi’s books.
Nina Ognianova, who is the Europe and Central Asia coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said: “Journalists should be allowed to carry out their role as watchdog and investigate alleged wrongdoing without fear of repercussions.”
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