Vatican IT expert had little motive to steal, court told

A Vatican computer expert accused of helping the Pope’s former butler steal secret correspondence did not know the man well and had little motive to risk his 20 years on the job for him, a defence lawyer argued at the start of the second trial in the scandal.

The Vatican’s accusations are based in part on information from an anonymous source that the two defendants had frequent contacts, but Paolo Gabriele, the former butler, didn’t even trust his client enough to let him upgrade his outdated work computer, lawyer Gianluca Benedetti told the court.

Claudio Sciarpelletti, the Holy See’s computer programmer in the key office of Secretariat of State, is facing trial a month after Gabriele was convicted by a Vatican court of the theft of the documents, which reportedly formed part of an Italian muckraking journalist’s book of scandalous revelations about bureaucratic infighting, power plays and alleged corruption.

Gabriele, a 46-year-old married layman whose family lives in Vatican City, is serving an 18-month sentence in a Vatican cell.

He was escorted into the courtroom to testify.

But the judge decided the witnesses will instead be heard on Saturday to give the defence more time to prepare.

Sciarpelletti, 48, is accused of aiding and abetting by giving contradicting statements to Vatican investigators about an envelope found in his desk, addressed to Gabriele.

Sciarpelletti claimed he never read the contents.