Rome, Italy, Apr 23, 2008 / 04:36 am
A former church custodian accused of faking an incident where a Virgin Mary statue wept blood was put on trial in the northern Italian city of Forli’ on Friday, ANSA reports.
Police accuse Vincenzo Di Costanzo of dripping his own blood onto the face of the statue in Forli’s Santa Lucia Church in a March 2006 attempt to simulate a miracle.
Forensic experts who examined the blood found the DNA matched that of a saliva sample taken from Di Costanzo.
"This is a case of high sacrilege," said the public prosecutor Alessandro Mancini, according to ANSA.