Friday, June 8, 2012

Vatican hits back at Italy over document seizure

Pope Benedict XVI blesses faithful during the weekly general audience in St. Peter square at the Vatican, Wednesday, June 6, 2012. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Benedict XVI blesses faithful during the weekly general audience in St. Peter square at the Vatican, Wednesday, June 6, 2012. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

(AP) ? The Vatican has chastised Italian authorities for seizing documents intended for Pope Benedict XVI during a raid on the home of the recently ousted Vatican bank chief.

The Vatican said in a statement Friday that it is an internationally recognized sovereign state and that it expects Italian judicial authorities will respect that in any proceedings concerning Ettore Gotti Tedeschi.

Italian paramilitary police raided Gotti Tedeschi's Piacenza home on Tuesday as part of a corruption investigation into Italy's state-controlled aerospace giant Finmeccanica.

During the raid, police seized a memorandum Gotti Tedeschi had prepared for the pope concerning his controversial May 24 ouster.

The seizure posed potentially thorny legal issues, since Gotti Tedeschi was until recently an official of a sovereign state ? the Vatican ? and as such enjoys some immunity.

Associated Press

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