Pope Benedict has pardoned his former butler, who was sentenced to 18 months in jail for leaking secret papal memos but has banished him from the Vatican.
A Vatican spokesman said after a 15-minute meeting with the Pope, Paolo Gabriele has returned home to his wife and three children.
He had spent a total of three-and-a-half months in detention.
But the former trusted aide, who passed hours of every day in the pontiff's company, cannot continue to live in Vatican City and will now have to move out of his home within the tiny city state's walls.
