Vatican rejects «inappropriate» criticism of VatiLeaks 2 trial

Vatican City (dpa) - The Vatican on Monday defended its decision to put on trial two journalists who published embarrassing information about the Catholic Church‘s finances, rejecting suggestions it was trampling on the freedom of the press.Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, whose books were published last month in Italy, have been accused of maliciously soliciting leaks from Vatican officials and risk up to eight years imprisonment if found guilty."Many" comments about the trial, which has been dubbed VatiLeaks 2, "are inappropriate, or at times entirely unjustified," Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said in a statement.The legal system of the Vatican City State has "all the procedural guarantees characteristic of the most advanced contemporary legal systems," and respects "all the fundamental principles" of a fair trial, Lombardi said.Nuzzi and Fittipaldi have made several complaints, including that they were not given a chance to properly look at the evidence collected against them, and denied the chance to be represented by their regular Italian lawyers.They also claim that their actions would not be criminalized in their home country of Italy, or elsewhere in the European Union, and stress that none of the information they published has been denied or considered libellous."Obviously, I find what is happening [to me] crazy and Kafkaesque" Nuzzi said two weeks ago.Lombardi said it was "unsurprising" that an Italian lawyer might be excluded from a Vatican trial, "just as he or she would not be able to practice in Germany or France," and insisted that the Vatican "has its own legal order, entirely autonomous and separate from the Italian legal system."The VatiLeaks 2 trial started on November 24. There are three other defendants, accused of having passed on the information to the journalists: Spanish Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda, his aide Nicola Maio, and Italian PR consultant Francesca Chaouqui.Balda and Chaouqui were members of a now-disbanded panel that reviewed Vatican financial affairs on behalf of the pope. They were due to be questioned on Monday, but were not, as the court examined a series of objections raised by the defence."There was no questioning yet, we had a discussion about jurisdiction," Chaouqui‘s counsel, Laura Sgro, told reporters after the hearing.