Silvio Berlusconi's brother is a suspect in a probe by Rome prosecutors of a public relations expert on trial at the Vatican over the theft of confidential documents published in two new tell-all books, prosecutors said Tuesday.
The Italian ex-premier's sibling, Paolo Berlusconi, failed to report extortion against him by Francesca Chaouqui, who abused her position as a member of a church financial and administrative reforms commission set up by Pope Francis, according to prosecutors.
Chaouqui allegedly pressured Berlusconi, editor of conservative daily Il Giornale, to sack his Vatican correspondent, threatening to hand to Italian prosecutors international court documents sent to the Vatican about Silvio Berlusconi and make their contents public according to wiretapped phone conversations cited by Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
The dozens of wiretapped phone conversations recorded by investigators implicate "a long list" of suspects, including a senior Italian civil servant who asked Chaouqui and her husband to hack Vatican computers to glean personal information on his partner's ex-wife, the paper said.
The appointment of Chaouqui and her co-accused in the Vatican leaks trial, high-ranking clergyman Mons. Lucio Vallejo Balda to the now-disbanded church reform panel in 2013 was "a mistake", Pope Francis told journalists on Monday.
Rome prosecutors are also probing Chaouqui and her husband, Corrado Lanino, an IT specialist, over alleged "irregularities" in the sale of Girolamo castle near Narni, in Umbria. She denies all wrongdoing.
Besides Chaouqui and Vallejo Balda, the Vatican is trying Balda's assistant and two Italian journalists, Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi over the leaked secret documents.
Nuzzi and Fittipaldi's fast-selling new books draw on the documents to depict greed, graft, mismanagement by Vatican prelates and resistance to reform efforts from the old guard.
