(supersedes previous)(ANSA) - Vatican, City, November 30 -
Rome prosecutors have placed Vatileaks 2 defendant Francesca
Immacolata Chaouqui and her husband Corrado Lanino under
investigation for suspected irregularities in the sale of San
Girolamo castle near the town of Narni, judicial sources said
Monday.
Chaouqui, a public relations expert, is currently on trial
in the Vatican along with four others for allegedly leaking
confidential documents.
Chaouqui and her co-defendants, investigative journalists
Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, Monsignor Lucio Angel
Vallejo Balda and his former assistant Nicola Maio, all attended
Monday's hearing.
Chaouqui, Balda and Maio are charged with leaking the
confidential material and Nuzzi and Fittipaldi with using it in
two recently published books - one titled Avarice, the other
Merchants in the Temple - documenting Vatican waste and
mismanagement and lavish spending by clergymen.
Balda, who is jailed in a Vatican prison, reportedly
alleged in a written statement that he and Chaouqui were lovers
and that he feared she may be a secret service agent.
"I don't understand anything," Chaouqui said on Monday.
"There's no evidence against me".
"Seeing Balda smiling instead of being ashamed at the lies
he's written disgusted me more than the lies themselves," she
wrote later on Facebook.
The trial was postponed to December 7 to allow Chaouqui's
new defence lawyer to get up to speed.
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