Crime in Vatican City
Given the news of an arrest in the Vatican leaks situation .... Pope's butler vows to help Vatican scandal probe .... my mind just boggles at the implications. Not the implications of the leaks themselves, but the implications of the leadership of a Christian denomination acting as a state that apparently can arrest and jail suspects, interrogate them, judge them, and I assume, will then punish them. Questions ..... under what conditions are prisoners held, judged .... is the suspect an Italian citizen, and if so, why would he not be held and tried in an Italian court? This Wikipedia page, Crime in Vatican City, asserts that ...
Crime in Vatican City is handled in accordance with article 22 of the 1929 Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and Italy, by which the Italian government, when requested by the Holy See, seeks prosecution and detention of criminal suspects, at the expense of the Vatican. The Vatican has no prison system. People convicted of committing crimes in the Vatican serve terms in Italian prisons (Polizia Penitenziaria), with costs covered by the Vatican.
But anyway, here's a little bit from a story at the Vatican Insider on the arrest of the butler ....
Rumours of new suspects beyond the Tiber: now the hunt is on for the masterminds: A lay functionary under scrutiny: he could be arrested
[...] Yesterday the Pope mentioned the Gospel: “the wind shakes the House of God, but it does not fall”. No direct reference to the Vatileaks scandal, though the reference does mention clouds that are gathering of the skies of the present. The transition to the formal stage, said spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, has made it possible to officially release the name of the arrested individual; furthermore, it involves a real arrest to all effects, given that in the Vatican, the practice taking a suspect into "custody" does not exist. The investigation has been proceeding swiftly thanks to the fact that it's entirely within the Vatican's jurisdiction: Gabriele is a Vatican citizen, and lives next to the Gendarmerie, and it was in his home were the "confidential documents were discovered." Full-court investigations, which don't exclude "other acts"; for this reason, the length of the investigation could even lengthen. Again in the afternoon, Fr. Lombardi intervened to explain that "the judiciary has now charged Paolo Gabriele simply with the crime of aggravated theft: we are at a very early stage of criminal proceedings, therefore the high estimates regarding an eventual prison sentence printed by some newspapers have absolutely no justification”. A clarification with respect to some reports, according to which Gabriele would have been charged with crimes such as a violation of the correspondence of a head of state, and thus an attack on state security, with a penalty of up to 30 years in prison .....
Crime in Vatican City is handled in accordance with article 22 of the 1929 Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and Italy, by which the Italian government, when requested by the Holy See, seeks prosecution and detention of criminal suspects, at the expense of the Vatican. The Vatican has no prison system. People convicted of committing crimes in the Vatican serve terms in Italian prisons (Polizia Penitenziaria), with costs covered by the Vatican.
But anyway, here's a little bit from a story at the Vatican Insider on the arrest of the butler ....
Rumours of new suspects beyond the Tiber: now the hunt is on for the masterminds: A lay functionary under scrutiny: he could be arrested
[...] Yesterday the Pope mentioned the Gospel: “the wind shakes the House of God, but it does not fall”. No direct reference to the Vatileaks scandal, though the reference does mention clouds that are gathering of the skies of the present. The transition to the formal stage, said spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, has made it possible to officially release the name of the arrested individual; furthermore, it involves a real arrest to all effects, given that in the Vatican, the practice taking a suspect into "custody" does not exist. The investigation has been proceeding swiftly thanks to the fact that it's entirely within the Vatican's jurisdiction: Gabriele is a Vatican citizen, and lives next to the Gendarmerie, and it was in his home were the "confidential documents were discovered." Full-court investigations, which don't exclude "other acts"; for this reason, the length of the investigation could even lengthen. Again in the afternoon, Fr. Lombardi intervened to explain that "the judiciary has now charged Paolo Gabriele simply with the crime of aggravated theft: we are at a very early stage of criminal proceedings, therefore the high estimates regarding an eventual prison sentence printed by some newspapers have absolutely no justification”. A clarification with respect to some reports, according to which Gabriele would have been charged with crimes such as a violation of the correspondence of a head of state, and thus an attack on state security, with a penalty of up to 30 years in prison .....
posted by crystal | 2:31 PM
3 Comments:
horrified and fascinated at the same time. Wonder what happens next?
Hi Richard,
Yeah, I wonder. Good thing they can't burn people at the stake anymore :)
Crime is every time difficult issue of the world. Police and other department is also new trick and research to done lot of cases.
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