ROME (REUTERS) - Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, a former top Vatican accountant now on trial for money smuggling, was further charged with money laundering on Tuesday, police officials and his lawyer said.

The new charge pertains to alleged laundering of millions of euros through his accounts at the Vatican bank, lawyer Silverio Sica told Reuters. Scarano has been under house arrest in his native Salerno in southern Italy as part of the money smuggling trial that began on Dec 3.

Scarano is accused in that case of plotting to smuggle some 20 million euros (S$34.6 million) out of Switzerland for rich shipbuilder friends in Salerno, near Naples.