Vatican orders probe of police for abuse of butler after arrest

Pope Benedict XVI has returned to the Vatican after three months of vacation to find his former butler on trial in one of the most damaging scandals of his pontificate: the leaks of stolen papal correspondence detailing power struggles, defamation campaigns and allegations of corruption at the highest level of the Catholic Church.                            

Paolo Gabriele was questioned on the stand Tuesday by the president of the Vatican tribunal, the first time the public heard from the butler himself about the events that landed him in a Vatican detention facility on May 23, accused of stealing the documents and giving them to a journalist.                            

A Vatican judge looking in the case, ordered an investigation of the Holy See's police force after Pope Benedict's former butler said he was held in a tiny room with the light on constantly for the first few weeks of his detention.

During the hearing, Gabriele said he did not have any direct accomplices but was influenced by others and by widespread malaise in the Vatican.

Vatican police arrested Gabriele after they found a stash of papal papers in his Vatican City home. In all, police carted off 82 boxes of papers, though not all of them were papal correspondence.                     

In its first hearing, the court released the list of witnesses who will testify in the case.

AP/REUTERS