Vatican City: first conviction in history for sexual abuse committed inside the Vatican, an appeal court reversing an acquittal of a pre-seminary student coordinator

Proceedings

1. 2021-10-06 · acquittal

   Tribunal of Vatican City State (first instance). At first instance the Vatican tribunal acquitted Gabriele Martinelli of the charges concerning his conduct towards a younger student at the St Pius X pre-seminary.

2. 2024-01-25 · acquittal reversed; conviction and sentence

   Court of Appeal of Vatican City State. The Vatican appeal court overturned the 2021 acquittal and convicted Gabriele Martinelli, then 32, of sexual offences against a fellow student of the St Pius X pre-seminary. The court found that, as senior coordinator of student activities, he had used violence and threats and exploited his authority to compel the victim into sexual acts on multiple occasions, in different places and at different times, between August 2008 and March 2009, when the victim was around fifteen. He was sentenced to two years and six months' imprisonment and fined €1,000. Reporting describes this as the first conviction in history for such offences committed within Vatican territory. The investigation began after a Polish former resident of the pre-seminary reported what he had witnessed in 2012.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• supervisory authority over a younger residential student of the pre-seminary
• violence and threats used to compel compliance, as found by the court
• a closed residential seminary community from which the victim could not withdraw