VATICAN CITY
Times of India
Vatican City, June 14, 2016 (AFP) –
Final hearings in the Vatican’s controversial leaks trial of journalists and others will be held next month in a finale to over nine months of courtroom drama that has embarrassed the Holy See.
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said Tuesday that final arguments and sentencing requests would be made July 4-6.
A panel of judges will then have to decide if any of the five defendants should face prison sentences for their role in exposing waste and financial mismanagement at the top of the Church based on leaked classified documents.
The Vatican also announced that Spanish monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda, who has been held in a police cell for much of the trial, had been released from custody on Saturday and was now in a state of “semi-liberty.”
Balda admitted earlier in the trial to leaking classified documents to journalists but claimed he did so under pressure from a female former colleague after she made advances to him culminating in a “compromising” encounter in a hotel room.
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