Pope's Butler Jailed For 18 Months For Stealing And Leaking Secret Vatican Documents

Pope Benedict’s former butler has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing the Pope’s private documents and leaking them to a journalist.

Paolo Gabriele was convicted today two hours after a three-judge panel began deliberating his fate.

The prosecution had asked for three years but Judge Giuseppe Dalla Torre said in his verdict, that the sentence was reduced because of mitigating circumstances including the fact that Gabriele had no previous record.

Gabriele stole thousands of highly sensitive documents the pontiff had marked 'to be destroyed' and compromised Vatican security through his actions, the court heard.

In his final appeal, Gabriele told the court that he acted wholly out of deep, ‘visceral’ love for the Roman Catholic Church and the pope he once worked for.

He said in court: ‘I don’t feel like a thief.'

In closing, defence lawyer Cristiana Arru insisted that only photocopies, not original documents, were taken from the Apostolic Palace, challenging testimony from the Pope’s secretary who said he saw the original letters among evidence seized from Gabriele’s home.

She said Gabriele’s actions were ‘condemnable’ but said it was a misappropriation of documents, not theft, and so should serve no time for the lesser crime.

Gabriele's leak to an Italian journalist of sensitive documents, some of them alleging corruption in the Vatican, caused one of the biggest crises of Pope Benedict's papacy.

It is unclear where Gabriele will serve his sentence or if he will be sent back to jail after being under house arrest since July after spending his first two months in a Vatican detention room.

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