Pope's butler jailed for 18 months but likely to be pardoned for theft of documents
Whistle-blowing aide receives 'mild but fair' sentence but is likely to be pardoned for stealing files he said pointed to corruption in the church
Pope Benedict's former butler Paolo Gabriele yesterday got 18 months in prison for stealing secret documents from the Vatican that revealed fraud and intrigue.
Presiding judge Giuseppe Dalla Torre gave the ex-butler three years but immediately reduced the sentence on the grounds of his past service to the Catholic Church and his apology to the pope for betraying him.
The Vatican's spokesman Federico Lombardi told journalists after the verdict that the pope was "very likely" to pardon Gabriele.
The former butler was found guilty of stealing hundreds of sensitive Vatican documents, including letters from cardinals and politicians and papers that the pontiff himself had marked "To Be Destroyed".
"In the name of his holiness Pope Benedict XVI, who reigns in glory, and invoking the Holy Trinity... this court sentences the defendant to three years in prison," the judge said as Gabriele looked on impassively.
Dalla Torre said he had taken into consideration the absence of a criminal record, his service record and "the subjective though erroneous motivation provided by the defendant as to his motivation".
Gabriele's "declaration of his acknowledgement of having betrayed the trust of the holy father" had also weighed in his favour and led to a shorter sentence.
The Vatican's prosecutor, Nicola Picardi, had called for Gabriele to be jailed for three years.
"It was a good sentence," said Gabriele's lawyer Cristiana Arru, who added that she would "have to evaluate" whether her client would appeal the ruling which brought to an end a trial that began just a week ago.
Lombardi, who described the verdict as "mild and fair", said Gabriele would remain under house arrest "while the pope evaluates his position".
The possibility he will be pardoned "is very concrete and very likely" he said, although he could not give details as to when the pope's pardon might come.
In his final statement, Gabriele said he had "acted out of visceral love for the Church of Christ and of its leader on earth".
"I do not feel that I am a thief," he added, as Arru called on the judge to be lenient on a man who was driven by "a moral motivation" and who had by no means cooked up a "scheme or plot" aimed at damaging the Church or the pope. She asked for Gabriele to be given the minimal sentence possible for theft, which is three days in prison.
The former butler claimed from the start that he wanted to root out "evil and corruption" at the heart of the church after observing that the 85-year-old pontiff was not well informed and perhaps even "manipulated".
Using the codename "Maria", Gabriele met an Italian journalist over several months and passed him the confidential documents.
He had admitted responsibility but claimed to be "innocent" of theft, though he said he felt "guilty" of betraying the trust the pope had placed in him.
The personal letter he wrote to Benedict to ask for his forgiveness no doubt influenced the judge's decision to cut his sentence in half.
Vatican gendarmes said their search of Gabriele's home in the Vatican had revealed more than 1,000 sensitive papal papers and a huge amount of printed material about freemasonry, spying techniques and Vatican finances.
Gabriele has alleged he was mistreated by the gendarmes when he was held for 53 days in two "security rooms" at the Vatican, complaining that the lights were kept on for 24 hours a day for the first three weeks of his detention.
Gianluigi Nuzzi, the Italian journalist to whom Gabriele has admitted passing the documents, called the butler "courageous" and said he wants an inquiry into the allegations in the papers and not into how they were leaked.
