Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, a PR who is among five suspects in the Vatileaks 2 trial, said after a brief hearing Monday that she is not hoping to receive a pardon from Pope Francis since she is innocent of the charges levelled against her by the Vatican.
"I am not expecting anything from the pontiff and any such
gesture is not what I want in any case," she told reporters who
asked her if she was hoping for a papal pardon.
"I am innocent and one doesn't pardon the innocent, one
acquits them".
Chaouqui is on trial along investigative journalists
Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, Monsignor Lucio Angel
Vallejo Balda and his former assistant Nicola Maio.
The trial opened last month and the second hearing last
week, like Monday's, was quickly adjourned.
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 alleged Vatican waste and
mismanagement and lavish spending by clergymen.
Chaouqui's defence lawyer, Laura Sgrò, confirmed that
nobody has been interrogated so far, and said that only
jurisdictional matters were discussed.
"We are satisfied, our requests were accepted," she said,
"the list of witnesses was allowed and also some experts were
allowed".
Vallejo Balda and Chaouqui were both members of the
now-defunct COSEA commission set up to advise Pope Francis on
reform of the Holy See's economic-administrative structure.
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