This Europe: Holy smoke lifts to reveal Vatican crime wave

A bid by the Vatican to expose some of its workings to public scrutiny backfired yesterday when La Stampa, a respected Italian daily, concluded that "the population of the Vatican would appear to be the most criminal and litigious in the world."

Vatican City, 106 acres in area and Europe's last remaining absolute monarchy, revealed that while it has a population of only 455, last year its miniature legal system hosted 397 civil cases and 608 criminal ones – two legal cases and nearly 1.5 crimes for every man, woman and child.

But as Gianluigi Marone, the state's top judge, pointed out, the explanation was that most of the petty offences were committed by outsiders. "The places most affected are the museums and the basilica of St Peter's," he said, "through which millions of people pass every year."

These were the first judicial statistics published in the 74-year history of the Vatican as a sovereign state.

The publication was in response to criticism that the Vatican's processes are wrapped in deliberate mystification – criticism that peaked following the murder in 1998 of a Swiss Guard and his wife, followed by the suicide of another Swiss Guard, allegedly the murderer.

After the bodies were discovered there was an internal inquiry, but only a fraction of its findings were made public. A lawyer involved in the case said the Vatican legal system was marked by "secrecy, silence and abuse".

Publication this week of details of parking offences, petty fraud and shoplifting may be seen as a step in the right direction – though a very small and rather irrelevant one.