ROME
ANSA
(ANSA) – Rome, November 23 – The trial of journalists Emiliano Fittipaldi and Gianluigi Nuzzi Tuesday in the Vatican for their books about the Holy See, “Avarice” and “The Way of the Cross,” is a trial against freedom of the press as well as the two reporters, the pair have said.
Together with the two accused of divulging Holy See confidential documents also being tried are alleged whistleblowers, Monsignor Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda and Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, as well as Vallejo’s former assistant Nicola Maio, all of them also accused of criminal association for having taken documents from the Vatican’s financial affairs committee and passing them to the two reporters.
Nuzzi and Fittipaldi, who under Vatican law face potential sentences of four to eight years in prison if found guilty, indicated they would be present in court but both strongly protest the trial of journalists merely for doing their job and threatening thereby the freedom of information.
“What is opening is not a trial against me but a trial against freedom of the press,” Fittipaldi wrote in a letter to la Repubblica.
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