The Vatileaks 2 trial
may take up to two months to resume, Vatican Spokesman Father
Federico Lombardi said Friday.
"A delay of two months is plausible" given the time needed
to prepare various expert testimony, he said.
Earlier this week a Holy See court ruled that Vatican
Secretary of State Pietro Parolin should be called as a witness.
The court granted a request by the defence team of one of
the five accused, Francesca Chaouqui, to call as witnesses
Parolin and Santos Abril y Castello', the president of the
Commission of Cardinals of the Vatican bank, IOR.
The court rejected a petition by Chaouqui's lawyers
challenging the Vatican's jurisdiction over the case on the
grounds that the alleged crimes took place in Italy.
The court agreed to Chaouqui's request for an expert to
analyze electronic communication via email, text and Whatsapp
messages between her and Monsignor Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, a
senior Spanish clergyman who is also among the people in the
dock, and who has claimed Chaouqui had sex with him in a
Florence hotel.
But it rejected a request from Vallejo Balda's lawyers for
an evaluation of his psychological state.
Vallejo Balda and PR expert Chaouqui were both members of
the now-defunct COSEA commission set up to advise Pope Francis
on the reform of the Holy See's economic and administrative
structure.
Investigative journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano
Fittipaldi and Vallejo Balda's former assistant Nicola Maio are
also on trial.
Chaouqui, Balda and Maio are charged with leaking
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.
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