International law applies to Vatileaks case, says Alfano

(ANSA) - Rome, December 2 - Interior Minister Angelino Alfano has said that the rules of international law will apply in the case of three Vatican officials put on trial for allegedly leaking confidential papal documents to two journalists who are also being tried in the Vatican.
    "We have the Italian penal code and the Vatican has its own judicial system," Alfano said in response to questions from journalists on the Vatileaks trial. "In these circumstances the rules of international law will apply." "If found guilty, we will give more thought to the matter," he added. "But we're not in that phase yet." Five people are currently on trial in the Vatican for allegedly leaking confidential documents. The trial of Immacolata Chaouqui, a public relations expert, investigative journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, Monsignor Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda and his former assistant Nicola Maio opened last Monday.
    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.