Francesca Chaouqui, one of two people arrested on suspicion of leaking confidential Vatican documents to Italian media, on Tuesday claimed she is innocent and did not betray Pope Francis.
"I am not a mole, and I didn't betray the Pope," 32-year-old Chaouqui wrote on her Facebook page.
"I have never given a single document to anyone. Never to anyone. I am sure the truth will soon emerge and I have total faith in the investigation."
In an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Chaouqui claimed that she was unjustly implicated in the leaks scandal by her co-accused, Spanish priest Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda after he was passed over for two important jobs.
"There is a long knives atmosphere, also due to the two appointments that failed to materialise: first the Monsignor [Vallejo Balda] hoped to become head of the economics directorate and then auditor-general of the Holy See," she said.
"I am completely extraneous to this scandal. The Monsignor has tried to drag me into it - as you can imagine, the climate [in the Vatican] is horrendous."
Chaouqui and Vallejo Balda, both members of a former panel created by Pope Francis to study Church reforms, were arrested at the weekend but Chaouqui was freed after she agreed to cooperate with investigators, the Vatican said on Monday.
Chaouqui's lawyer says she can't leave Italy. Further arrests are not ruled out and a trial is expected in 2016.
The Vatican also said it may take legal action against two Italian authors, Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, who are due to publish books allegedly containing leaked confidential Holy See documents with new evidence of past scandals in the Vatican.
Chaouqui raised eyebrows when in 2013 was handpicked by Pope Francis as the only laywoman on the eight-member advisory panel he created to study Church reforms. She had previously having published 'artistic' semi-nude photos of herself and tweeted that the Vatican's then-secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone was corrupt.
The striking brunette was born in the southern Italian region of Calabria to an Italian mother and a French father of Moroccan descent. After graduating in law from the University of Rome 'La Sapienza' she worked as a lobbyist including for consultancy firm Ernst & Young. She married computer expert Corrado Lanino, who has close ties to the Vatican.
