Pope's butler: "I'm innocent of theft in leaks trial"

Pope Benedict XVI's former butler Paolo Gabriele testified at his Vatican trial Tuesday that he was innocent of a charge of theft but guilty of abusing the trust of a pope whom he loved like a father. Gabriele took the stand at his historic trial for stealing secret memos in what he said was a bid to battle "evil and corruption" within the Vatican. Speaking out for the first time since his arrest in May and his 53-day detention in a Vatican security cell, the former butler said he had acted because he believed the pope was being "manipulated." While Gabriele said he had been working alone when he copied the confidential documents, he said he had "many contacts" in the Vatican where says there was "widespread unease". The hearing in the tiny state's 19th-century courtroom lasted more than three hours. Television cameras were banned and only 10 journalists had access. Gabriele, who is now under house arrest, is accused of leaking hundreds of memos that reported fraud and intrigue among senior Vatican figures.  At the start of the trial on Saturday, Gabriele suffered a series of setbacks when judges turned down his lawyer's requests to strike down his indictment and throw out the case because of rules on papal secrecy. Judges also declined to include in the trial a top secret report on the "Vatileaks" scandal compiled by a committee of cardinals appointed by the pope who interviewed dozens of people in a parallel investigation into the leaks.The first hearing also revealed that Vatican gendarmes had seized 82 boxes of material from Gabriele's service apartments in the Vatican and at the pope's summer residence and installed a camera on the landing of his Vatican flat. If convicted of aggravated theft, Gabriele faces up to four years in jail. The former butler has not entered a plea. Although he has admitted leaking the documents, his confession is not legally considered definitive proof for a conviction because he could have lied to protect fellow whistle blowers. Gabriele gave only one interview in February to Gianluigi Nuzzi, the Italian investigative journalist to whom he is accused of having leaked the documents.  His identity was hidden in the interview where Gabriele used the code name "Maria" -- but it was revealed by the journalist after Gabriele's arrest. Nuzzi wrote a Twitter message on Saturday urging support for Gabriele saying: "Good luck, brave Paoletto, let's not leave him alone!" The journalist has also said he is ready to appear before Italian authorities if there is a formal request from the Vatican that he be charged for receiving stolen goods -- something which has not happened. The key question is whether Gabriele acted on his own or whether the leaks point to wider unease. That would spell a more serious crisis for the Vatican which is already struggling with paedophilia scandals and rising secularism. Gabriele himself in his February interview spoke vaguely of "around 20" like-minded people spread across the Vatican institutions and there have been unconfirmed reports in the Italian press of battles between rival cardinals. The butler expressed frustration with a culture of secrecy in the Vatican -- from the mysterious disappearance of the daughter of a Vatican employee in 1983 to a quickly hushed-up double murder and suicide by a Swiss guard in 1998. "There is a kind of omerta against the truth, not so much because of a power struggle but because of fear, because of caution," Gabriele said in the interview, using the term for the code of silence of the Sicilian mafia. "It annoys people when you stick your nose in their dirty laundry," he said. Leaking the documents had been "a gesture of rage" against inaction, he added. Gabriele comes across in the interview as a deeply religious man who says he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to reveal intrigues behind the Vatican walls so as to help the pope clear out corruption from the heart of the Catholic Church."There is a lot of hypocrisy, this is the kingdom of hypocrisy," he said. Gabriele also said he was aware of the consequences of his actions but that the potential to change something in the Vatican was worth the risk. "Being a witness to truth means being ready to pay the price," he said.