Fraud charges in case of weeping statue in Italy

A church warden has gone on trial accused of dripping his own blood on the face of a Virgin Mary statue so that she appeared to be weeping.

People flocked to the Santa Lucia church in the northern Italian town of Forli two years ago after the "miracle" was spotted by two elderly women.

The weeping statue became a media sensation until Mgr Lino Pizzi, the local bishop, decided to have it removed and called the police to investigate.

Vincenzo di Costanzo was charged with denigrating religion after forensic experts discovered that the bloody "teardrops" matched DNA swabbed from his mouth.

"This is highly sacrilegious," said Alessandro Mancini, the state prosecutor in the trial, who has accused the church warden of deliberately conning the local Roman Catholic faithful. However, di Costanzo denies the charges and has volunteered to take a lie-detector test.

The statue, which is almost four feet high, shows the Madonna with her hands clasped in prayer to heaven. It did not weep again after being moved to the bishop's office for analysis.