Former pope's butler Paolo Gabriele sentenced 18 months for leaking secret documents

Ralphryder

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Nov 16, 2011
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The pope's ex-butler has been convicted of stealing the pontiff's private documents and leaking them to a journalist, and has been sentenced to 18 months in prison.


Judge Giuseppe Dalla Torre read the verdict aloud on Saturday one hour after the three-judge panel began deliberating Paolo Gabriele's fate.

The prosecution had sought a three-year sentence. The defence, for its part, asked the court to reduce the charges against Paolo Gabriele from "aggravated theft" to "misappropriation," and for him to be freed.

Gabriele said on Saturday he had acted out of love for the Catholic Church.

"The thing I feel most strongly is the conviction of having acted out of visceral love for the Church of Christ and of its leader on earth. I do not feel I am a thief," Gabriele told the court at the trial's final hearing.

Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said shortly after the verdict that the pope is "very likely" to pardon Gabriele, though he would not give any further details.

Gabriele's father was in the courtroom, the first time a family member had attended his weeklong trial.

'Condemnable' actions

Gabriele is accused of stealing the pope's private correspondence and passing it on to journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, whose book revealed the intrigue, petty infighting and allegations of corruption and homosexual liaisons that plague the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church.

The book, His Holiness: Pope Benedict XVI's Secret Papers, has convulsed the Vatican for months and prompted an unprecedented response, with the pope naming a commission of cardinals to investigate the origin of the leaks.

In her closing arguments, defence attorney Cristiana Arru insisted that only photocopies, not original documents, were taken from the Apostolic Palace, disputing testimony from the pope's secretary, who said she saw original letters in the evidence seized from Gabriele's home.

She admitted Gabriele's gesture was "condemnable" but said it was a misappropriation of documents, not theft, and that as a result he should serve no prison time.

Gabriele said he had stolen the documents hoping to expose corrupt dealings in the Vatican. It's not clear where he will serve his sentence, or if he will be sent back to jail. He has been held on house arrest since July after spending his first two months in a Vatican detention room.

The Vatican has said he would serve any sentence in an Italian prison because it does not have any long-term prison facilities.

Source: Aljazeera news

Kwani huwa kuna siri gani kubwa kwa roman catholic mpaka mtu afungwe! Hebu fungukeni.
 
hii kitu ngumu sana,unamkumbuka pope aliyekalia kiti siku 33???
 
hii kitu ngumu sana,unamkumbuka pope aliyekalia kiti siku 33???

Namkumbuka sana halafu kuna haya mambo ya sijui moshi mweupe wa blue so 'n so na mengineyo! labda ndio siri zenyewe!
 
Kuna mambo ya siri sana na yalikuwa hayatoki for years! sasa mambo yameanza kuharibika. On the same stance, pia ndio maana jamaa aloandika Da Vinci Code nae alifuatiliwa sana coz alikuwa anaigusa Vatican mule mule!
 
Tram Almasi

Kweli mkuu ile movie nimeiona ina siri kibao,na kila kitu kilianikwa! hebu kumbuka na ile ya Mel Gibson, the patience of Christ, nayo wanaichukia kinoma!
 
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Gabriele, seen here on the right


Continue reading the main story[h=2]Related Stories[/h]

Pope Benedict's ex-butler Paolo Gabriele has been found guilty of stealing confidential papers and sentenced to 18 months in jail.
Prosecutors had called for a three-year sentence but it was reduced because of "mitigating circumstances".
Speaking before the verdict, he said he acted out of love for the Church and did not see himself as a thief.
Gabriele had denied the theft charge but admitted photocopying documents and "betraying the Holy Father's trust".
Defence lawyer Christina Arru had asked for the charge to be reduced, but described the sentence as "good" and "balanced".
She said she would wait for the written judgement before deciding whether to appeal.
Continue reading the main story[h=2]Analysis[/h]
_48373845_000086495.jpg
David WilleyBBC News, Rome
This is not the end of the affair of the Pope's butler. Under Vatican law a sentence does not become definitive until it has been confirmed by two appeal courts and this could take months to complete.
But the Holy See would like to see rapid closure of the butler scandal.
Vatican Radio and the Vatican daily newspaper have devoted little space or time to the trial as they are giving major prominence to a conference of bishops from around the world which begins in Rome this weekend. The subject: The New Evangelisation - or how to stop the current haemorrhage of believers in many formerly predominantly Catholic countries.
A swift end to the trial of Paolo Gabriele was part of Vatican strategy to regain confidence among believers after an embarrassing string of scandals inside the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church.

Gabriele is "very likely" to be pardoned by Pope Benedict, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said, though it is not clear when this might happen.
The former butler was accused of stealing and copying the Pope's documents and leaking them to an Italian journalist.
The BBC's David Willey in Rome says official Vatican media have almost totally ignored the trial since it began and morning radio bulletins have omitted to mention the story.
'High moral motives'The verdict was delivered after a deliberation of two hours by judges.
Presiding judge Guiseppe Dalla Torre gave a verdict of three years but then cut it to a year-and-a-half on the grounds of lack of a criminal record, his apology to the Pope and past services rendered to the Church.
The former butler will also have to pay court costs out of his own pocket.
Gabriele has now been returned to house arrest inside his Vatican apartment, where he has already been confined for several months.
The verdict brings to an end a week-long trial that has revealed an embarrassing breach of security at the highest levels of the Vatican.
On the last day of the trial, defence and prosecution lawyers gave their closing arguments, and Gabriele made a final appeal.
"The thing I feel most strongly is the conviction of having acted out of visceral love for the Church of Christ and of its leader on earth," he said.
"I do not feel I am a thief."
Ms Arru accused the Vatican police of irregularities and failures during their investigations.
She asked the court to reduce the charge to common theft or illegal possession, saying Gabriele had high moral motives although he had committed an illegal act.
Meanwhile prosecutor Nicola Picardi said Gabriele should be given a three-year prison sentence "with a perpetual but limited ban".
During testimony, the three judges presiding over the court heard how Gabriele used the photocopier in his shared office next to the Pope's library to copy thousands of documents, taking advantage of his unrivalled access to the pontiff.
He would later pass some of them on to journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi.
In 2010 Mr Nuzzi released a best-selling book, entitled His Holiness, largely based on the confidential papers and detailing corruption, scandals and infighting.
ConfessionIts publication sparked the hunt for the source of the leaks inside the Vatican, leading to Gabriele's arrest in May.
Police also told the court how they found thousands of documents at Gabriele's home, including some original papers bearing the Pope's handwriting. Some had the instruction "destroy" written by the Pope in German on them.
Although Gabriele entered a not guilty plea, prosecutors say he confessed to taking documents during an interrogation in June, a confession he later stood by in court.
He told prosecutors he hoped to reveal alleged corruption at the Vatican, and believed that the Pope was being manipulated.
"I feel guilty of having betrayed the trust of the Holy Father, whom I love as a son would," he told the court earlier this week.
Our correspondent says the Holy See wants to see rapid closure of the scandal, as this weekend the Church is beginning what it calls a "year of faith", a series of initiatives aimed at reviving Christian faith in formerly predominantly Catholic countries currently seeing creeping secularism.

s:BBC News - Pope ex-butler Paolo Gabriele jailed for theft
 
Vatican ni nchi, ndo wamemhukumu, Italy haina mamlaka juu ya nchi ya vatican
 
Inasemekana binti wa Paolo Gabriele amepotea katika mazingira ya kutatanisha baada ya kuonekana kwamba amepata fununu ya yanayoendelea Vatican baada ya kusoma baadhi ya hizo documents.Na inahofiwa kwamba labda ameuawa au kuwekwa under house arrest ili kuhakikisha hakuna damage zaidi baada ya leakage ya hizo documents. Scandals za Rushwa, Ngono na kukosa uadilifu kwa Papa vimegusiwa katika hizo documents ''alizojibinafsishia'' Paolo.
 
Jamani si ameshahukumiwa miezi 18 au wamempoteza kuficha asije akaropoka zaidi??ni kashfa nzito sana kwa Kanisa katoliki.ila sababu nao ni mafia,watajua nini cha kufanya kuzima scandal hii!
 
google 666and roman catholic au 666 and vatican
Utapata baadhi ya vitu ambavyo vimekuwa vikifichwa kwa muda wa miaka mingi.
 
Very silly, kwanini wasimhimize kutubu kama wanavyotuhimiza? akikupiga kofi la kushoto mpe na lakulia? What a hell.
 
kwani pope si mtakatifu.....sasa ana siri gani ambazo ni damaging kiasi kwamba zikitoka zinahatarisha mambo?......mimi nilidhani jamaa anashtakiwa kwa kumzushia Pope uongo!!
 
Inasemekana binti wa
Paolo Gabriele amepotea katika mazingira ya kutatanisha baada ya
kuonekana kwamba amepata fununu ya yanayoendelea Vatican baada ya kusoma
baadhi ya hizo documents.Na inahofiwa kwamba labda ameuawa au kuwekwa
under house arrest ili kuhakikisha hakuna damage zaidi baada ya leakage
ya hizo documents. Scandals za Rushwa, Ngono na kukosa uadilifu kwa Papa
vimegusiwa katika hizo documents ''alizojibinafsishia'' Paolo.

Inaweza kuwa kweli,maana kuna mafyongo kibao ktk zile documents, yani hatari tupu!
 
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