(Carlo Fusco, lawyer of pope’s personal butler Paolo Gabriele, speaks during a news conference at the Vatican July 21, 2012. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi)
The Vatican on Monday ordered Pope Benedict’s former butler to stand trial on charges of aggravated theft for leaking documents alleging widespread corruption and for the first time revealed a second man was accused of being involved in the case.
In a 35-page document on a scandal which has rocked the Holy See since butler Paolo Gabriele was arrested last May, the Vatican said he saw himself as an agent of the Holy Spirit.
Computer expert Claudio Sciarpelletti, a layman, had also been charged on lesser charges of aiding and abetting a crime, the document said.
It alleged Sciarpelletti was a close friend of Gabriele and that investigators had found a sealed envelope in his desk addressed to the butler which contained material published in a book based on the leaks.
