2 journalists on trial for detailing Vatican mismanagement

In a letter to the La Repubblica newspaper, Fittipaldi denounced the Vatican trial beginning Tuesday as “illiberal”.

Both also face up to eight years in prison under a 2013 law that criminalizes leaking.

The Vatican announced on Saturday it would try the two journalists, Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, who both published tell-all books this month accusing a few Vatican prelates of living in luxury and of misconduct while resisting Pope Francis’ drive to clean up Vatican finances.

Each wrote books about corruption and mismanagement in the Vatican, allegedly based on leaked documents.

Both authors argue the Vatican legislation under which they will be tried is totally anti-democratic in that it does not recognise basic freedom of opinion but rather intends to punish those who “procure” confidential Vatican documents.

The criminal trial was scheduled to begin November 24 in the small Vatican courtroom behind St. Peter’s Basilica.

Mr Fittipaldi said: “This is a trial against freedom of the press”.

Since Fittipaldi and Nuzzi are Italian citizens, any sentence would presumably involve an extradition request.

The three other people on trial were affiliated with the commission: Monsignor Angelo Lucio Vallejo Balda was its No. 2; Francesca Chaouqui was a member and outside public relations expert; and Nicola Maio was Balda’s assistant.

The Vatican officials were all members of a now defunct special commission set up by Pope Francis to advise him on economic reform.

All five are charged under section IX of the Vatican’s Crimes against the Security of the State, a law strengthened by the pope in the wake of the 2012 Vatileaks 1 case which saw Pope Benedict’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, convicted and eventually pardoned for having stolen confidential documents from the papal apartment. Nuzzi and Fittipaldi are accused of publishing those documents and of “soliciting and exercising pressure, above all on Vallejo Balda, to obtain the documents and other reserved news”, according to prosecutors.

Chaouqui was released shortly after her arrest and has since reportedly claimed that Vallejo Balda, who will come to court from a Vatican cell, was exclusively responsible for illicitly recording the pope.

The Foreign Press Association in Rome recalled that a few of the world’s fundamental conventions about human rights, such as the European Convention on Human Rights, list the freedom of religion “often invoked by the Catholic Church and Vatican” alongside freedom of expression.

“I call on the authorities not to proceed with the charges and protect journalists’ rights in accordance with OSCE commitments”, Mijatovic added.