Butler acted ‘out of love’ for Benedict

Paolo Gabriele, the papal butler held on suspicion of leaking documents alleging corruption in the Vatican, was driven by his love for Pope Benedict XVI and a desire to help clean up the Catholic Church, his lawyer said.

The lawyer, Carlo Fusco, told a news conference that Mr Gabriele had acted alone in the so-called “Vatileaks” scandal and was not part of any wider plot, saying he expected a Vatican magistrate to order a trial for him soon.

The 46-year-old butler’s arrest on May 23 caused an international furore after police found confidential papers in his apartment inside the Vatican — a dramatic twist that threw the global media spotlight on an institution battling to defend its reputation from allegations of graft.

“The motivations that prompted him to do certain things are all of an interior nature.

“There were no external motives,” Mr Fusco said after assisting Mr Gabriele in an interrogation that lasted seven hours.

Asked by a reporter if Mr Gabriele’s motive could have been to “help the pope clean up the Church”, Mr Fusco said: “That would be one way of interpreting it.”

Mr Fusco said Mr Gabriele, who is being investigated for aggravated theft and faces up to six years in jail if found guilty, was “moved by the desire to do something that could be an act of help, an act of love, towards the Pope”.

Mr Gabriele has been held in a small “safe room” inside the Vatican police station for the past two months, but over the weekend a decision was taken to allow him to return to his flat under house arrest.

Some Italian newspapers allege corruption in the Vatican’s business dealings with Italian companies, involving the payment of inflated prices for work.

Others highlight rivalries among cardinals and clashes over the management of the Vatican’s bank, known as the Institute for Works of Religion.

Mr Fusco said his client showed signs of remorse. “He has been able to reflect long and hard these days and came to the conclusion that the method [of helping the Pope] could have been different. He certainly regrets the method that was used.”

Many commentators have said that Mr Gabriele, who served the pope his meals and rode in the front seat of the Popemobile at Pope Benedict’s general audiences, could not have acted alone and was just a scapegoat for others. But the lawyer denied this.

“We can say with absolute certainty that there was no network, there were no plots, either in the Vatican or outside the Vatican, that Paolo was part of,” Mr Fusco said.