VATICAN CITY
Seattle PI
Nicole Winfield, Associated Press
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
VATICAN CITY (AP) — A communications expert testified in a Vatican court Wednesday that she never gave confidential documents to journalists. But she said a Vatican monsignor did after he was turned down for a promotion, began hanging out with an astrologer and confessed his sexual secrets to her.
Francesca Chaouqui took the stand Wednesday to defend herself against charges she passed confidential Vatican information to two journalists whose blockbuster books exposed waste, greed and mismanagement in the Holy See.
“Never, never,” Chaouqui testified. “I can assure you that no reserved documents ever passed from my hands.” She said she only ever gave journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi an invitation to a Vatican reception and a collection of newspaper clippings.
Chaouqui, Monsignor Angelo Lucio Vallejo Balda, a former high-ranking official in the Vatican’s finance office, and Vallejo’s secretary are on trial in the Vatican’s criminal court, accused of forming a criminal organization that provided top-secret documents to Nuzzi and journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi.
The two journalists are on trial too, accused of exerting pressure on Vallejo and publishing the material, which is a crime under Vatican City State law.
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