Vatican City, Mar 14, 2016 / 16:37 pm
During a Vatican City trial on Monday over a case in which five individuals are accused of leaking and disseminating confidential financial documents, a former Vatican official said he relayed documents only under duress.
"Yes, I passed documents," Msgr. Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, a former secretary of the Prefecture for Economic Affairs, told Vatican prosecutors March 14. "I was convinced I was in a situation without exit."
Msgr. Vallejo claimed he felt trapped by "the powerful world behind" Francesca Chaouqui – another of the defendants in the trial.
Chaouqui, a public relations expert, was a member of a committee formed by Pope Francis in 2013 to help reform Vatican finances. The committee, COSEA, has since been dissolved.