A Vatican court yesterday sentenced Pope Benedict XVI’s former butler Paolo Gabriele to 18 months in prison for stealing secret papal documents that revealed fraud scandals and intrigue.
I do not feel that I am a thief
Presiding Judge Giuseppe Dalla Torre initially gave the ex-butler three years but immediately reduced the sentence on the grounds of his past service to the Catholic Church and his apology to the Pope for betraying him.
The Vatican’s spokesman Federico Lombardi told journalists after the verdict that the Pope was “very likely” to pardon Gabriele, who is now under house arrest pending a decision on whether or not he will appeal the verdict.
“In the name of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, who reigns in glory, and invoking the Holy Trinity... this court sentences the defendant,” the Judge said as Gabriele, dressed in a brown suit, looked on impassively.
Dalla Torre, one of three judges at the trial, said he had taken into consideration Gabriele’s lack of a criminal record, his service record as well as the “subjective though erroneous motivation” the butler had provided.
He also said that Gabriele’s “declaration of his acknowledgement of having betrayed the trust of the Holy Father” had led to a shorter sentence.
Gabriele was immediately led away by Vatican gendarmes, passing under a large portrait of Pope Benedict hanging in the 19th-century courtroom.
“I am convinced that I acted solely out of love, I would say visceral love, for the Church of Christ and for its leader on Earth,” Gabriele said in a final statement to a hushed court when asked for his plea by the presiding judge.
“I do not feel that I am a thief,” the 46-year-old father of three said.
The former butler was found guilty of leaking hundreds of sensitive Vatican documents in a case that has been dubbed ‘Vatileaks’ and included allegations by a former governor of the city state of massive fraud within its walls.
Many of the documents contain barbs against the Vatican’s powerful Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, a divisive figure who has expanded his powers since being appointed by the Pope in 2006 and is challenged by some leading prelates.
Vatican Police said they had found more than 1,000 secretdocuments in Gabriele’s home stolen from the papal palace, including letters from cardinals and politicians and papers the pontiff himself had marked To Be Destroyed. “It was a good sentence, a balanced sentence,” said Gabriele’s lawyer Cristiana Arru, adding that she would “have to evaluate” whether she would appeal the ruling . Vatican expert Marco Politi from Il Fatto Quotidiano daily, a biographer of Benedict XVI, said it was “a political trial with a political verdict”.