Pope's butler is no scapegoat: Vatican

Jun 11, 2012 |

Vatican City

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Pope Benedict XVI's butler arrested last month for allegedly leaking confidential papers from the Vatican to an investigative journalist is no scapegoat, the Vatican said on Monday.

The notion put forward in some Italian media reports that Paolo Gabriele was only part of a wider plot including senior clergymen "does not at all correspond to reality," spokesman Federico Lombardi told reporters.

Gabriele, who is being held in the Vatican, is charged with "aggravated theft" and faces a sentence of between one and six years in prison.

He is accused of taking hundreds of documents from the desk of the pope's secretary, Georg Gaenswein, including top secret letters and memos.

Many of the documents were published in a book called Your Holiness which revealed alleged corruption and tensions between cardinals in the Vatican.

Referring to Gabriele, Lombardi said: "The resumption of interrogations is not imminent. The study of material useful to the investigation is continuing."

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