Judges retire for Vatileaks 2 verdicts

(ANSA) - Rome, July 7 - Vatican judges in the so-called Vatileaks 2 trial retired to chambers Thursday morning and verdicts are expected this afternoon.
    Prosecutors have asked the court to convict two former members of the now-defunct COSEA financial commission, Msgr Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda and PR expert Francesco Immacolata Chaouqui, as well as their former aide Nicola Maio, and journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi.
    The prosecutors have asked for the acquittal of the other journalist on trial, Emiliano Fittipaldi, for insufficient evidence.
    The three former Vatican officials are accused of handing confidential information on alleged financial mismanagement and unjustified personal spending to the journalists, who wrote two expose'-style books.
    Nuzzi is facing a one-year jail term.
    Chaouqui, who was in court with her three-week-old son, is facing a three-year nine-month sentence, which she has described as "surreal".
    Vallejo Balda is facing three years and one month in jail; and Maio one year and nine months.
    The case is called Vatileaks 2 because the first Vatileaks trial led to the conviction, and then pardon, of the former butler of ex-pope Benedict XVI, Paolo Gabriele.
    photo: the four main defendants, excluding Maio