Pope's ex-butler sentenced to 18 months' jail

7 Oct 2012, 6:35 am   -   Source: AAP, AFP

Pope Benedict XVI's former butler Paolo Gabriele has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing documents.

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Pope Benedict XVI's former butler Paolo Gabriele has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing secret documents from the Vatican.

Presiding judge Giuseppe Dalla Torre gave the former butler three years but immediately cut the sentence to 18 months on the grounds of service rendered to the Catholic Church in the past and his apology to the pope for betraying him.

Earlier on Saturday, Gabriele had insisted that he's no thief and that he leaked the pope's private correspondence to a journalist out of a "visceral love" for the church and its pope.

Defence lawyer Cristiana Arru insisted in closing arguments that only photocopies, not original documents, were taken from the Apostolic Palace, disputing testimony from the pope's secretary that original letters were in the evidence seized from Gabriele's home.

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

The Vatican's spokesman Federico Lombardi told journalists after the verdict that the pope was "very likely" to pardon Gabriele.

The former butler was found guilty of stealing hundreds of sensitive Vatican documents, including letters from cardinals and politicians and papers that the pontiff himself had marked "To Be Destroyed".

"In the name of his holiness Pope Benedict XVI, who reigns in glory, and invoking the Holy Trinity... this court sentences the defendant to three years in prison," the judge said as Gabriele looked on impassively.

Dalla Torre said he had taken into consideration "the absence of a criminal record, his service record preceding these charges and the subjective though erroneous motivation provided by the defendant as to his motivation".

Gabriele's "declaration of his acknowledgement of having betrayed the trust of the holy father" had also weighed in his favour and led to a shorter sentence.

The Vatican's prosecutor, Nicola Picardi, had called for the former butler to go to jail for three years.

"It was a good sentence," said Gabriele's lawyer Cristiana Arru, who added that she would "have to evaluate" whether her client would appeal the ruling which brought to an end a trial that began just a week ago.

Lombardi, who described the verdict as "mild and fair", said Gabriele would remain under house arrest "while the pope evaluates his position".

The possibility he will be pardoned "is very concrete and very likely" he said, although he could not give details as to when the pope's pardon might come.

In his final statement, Gabriele said he had "acted out of visceral love for the Church of Christ and of its leader on earth".

"MORAL MOTIVATION"

"I do not feel that I am a thief," he added, as Arru called on the judge to be lenient on a man who was driven by "a moral motivation" and who had by no means cooked up a "scheme or plot" aimed at damaging the Church or the pope.

She asked for Gabriele to be given the minimal sentence possible for theft, which is three days in prison.

The former butler had claimed from the start that he wanted to root out "evil and corruption" at the heart of the Catholic Church after observing that the 85-year-old pontiff was not well informed and perhaps even "manipulated".

Using the codename "Maria", Gabriele met with an Italian journalist over several months and passed him the confidential documents.

He had admitted responsibility but claimed to be "innocent" of theft, though he said he felt "guilty" of betraying the trust the pope had placed in him.

The personal letter he wrote to Benedict to ask for his forgiveness no doubt influenced the judge's decision to cut his sentence in half.

Vatican gendarmes said their search of Gabriele's home in the Vatican had revealed more than 1,000 sensitive papal papers as well as a huge amount of printed material about freemasonry, spying techniques and Vatican finances.

Gabriele has alleged he was mistreated by the gendarmes when he was held for 53 days in two "security rooms" at the Vatican, complaining that the lights were kept on for 24 hours a day for the first three weeks of his detention.

Gianluigi Nuzzi, the Italian journalist to whom Gabriele has admitted passing the documents, called the butler "courageous" and said he wants an inquiry into the allegations in the papers and not into how they were leaked.

The documents published in Nuzzi's book "His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI" contained allegations of fraud in the running of the city state and cloak-and-dagger intrigue among the pope's closest collaborators.

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.

The Vatican's criminal law dates back to the 19th century and the pope holds wide powers including the right to dismiss a case at any point during a trial.

The fact that the pope has not done so and that journalists have been allowed into the courtroom shows a desire for transparency, some experts say.

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