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Priest faces charges over Dominican Republic child abuse
Przemyslaw Nowak, spokesman for the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw, has confirmed that “several charges” will be brought against Father Wojciech G. (full name withheld under Polish privacy laws), following the priest’s detainment on Monday near Krakow.
Nowak also revealed that the house in which Father Wojciech G. had been residing in recent months has been searched.
However, Nowak said that he was not at liberty to discuss the details.
Although authorities in the Dominican Republic have already formally charged the priest, Poland has no extradition treaty with the Caribbean country at present, and it is expected that the priest will be tried in Poland.
Father Wojciech G. had served as head of a parish in the highland town of Juncalito for close to a decade.He was on holiday in Poland last year when allegations emerged against him, and he refused to return to his parish.
The Dominican Republic’s Attorney General sent the case files, which include 650 documents, to Poland last autumn.
“The material received from the Dominican Republic, together with our own material, is sufficient to justify bringing charges against him,” Nowak said.
However, he noted that the Dominican Republic would be asked to provide some supplementary documents, as some are “inaccurate, illegible or incomplete.”
Last year, Father Wojciech G. denied the accusations, claiming that they had been concocted by a drugs mafia that objected to educational programmes for children he had led in the region.
Father Wojciech G.’s is one of two current cases involving Polish clergymen in the Caribbean country. The Dominican Republic’s attorney general transferred case files to the Vatican last year concerning Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, former papal nuncio in the country.
It is understood that the archbishop is residing in Rome or the Vatican City, and the Holy See has confirmed that it will not extradite the clergyman, and will instead lead its own investigation. (nh)
Source: PAP
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A priest alleged to have abused boys in the Dominican Republic will be charged in Warsaw on Tuesday.
Polskie Radio Thenews.pl
18.02.2014 09:57
Przemyslaw Nowak, spokesman for the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw, has confirmed that “several charges” will be brought against Father Wojciech G. (full name withheld under Polish privacy laws), following the priest’s detainment on Monday near Krakow.
Nowak also revealed that the house in which Father Wojciech G. had been residing in recent months has been searched.
However, Nowak said that he was not at liberty to discuss the details.
Although authorities in the Dominican Republic have already formally charged the priest, Poland has no extradition treaty with the Caribbean country at present, and it is expected that the priest will be tried in Poland.
Father Wojciech G. had served as head of a parish in the highland town of Juncalito for close to a decade.He was on holiday in Poland last year when allegations emerged against him, and he refused to return to his parish.
The Dominican Republic’s Attorney General sent the case files, which include 650 documents, to Poland last autumn.
“The material received from the Dominican Republic, together with our own material, is sufficient to justify bringing charges against him,” Nowak said.
However, he noted that the Dominican Republic would be asked to provide some supplementary documents, as some are “inaccurate, illegible or incomplete.”
Last year, Father Wojciech G. denied the accusations, claiming that they had been concocted by a drugs mafia that objected to educational programmes for children he had led in the region.
Father Wojciech G.’s is one of two current cases involving Polish clergymen in the Caribbean country. The Dominican Republic’s attorney general transferred case files to the Vatican last year concerning Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, former papal nuncio in the country.
It is understood that the archbishop is residing in Rome or the Vatican City, and the Holy See has confirmed that it will not extradite the clergyman, and will instead lead its own investigation. (nh)
Source: PAP
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Priest charged with child sex abuse in Dominican Republic, Poland
Reuters
WARSAW
Another Polish cleric working in the Dominican Republic, Vatican nuncio (ambassador) Archbishop Josef Wesolowski, was recalled last September by the Vatican and is being investigated there on child sexual abuse charges.
(Reuters) – Polish prosecutors have charged a Catholic priest with four counts of sex abuse against children in his native Poland and in the Dominican Republic, where he was working in a rural parish, the prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday.
The priest worked in the Dominican Republic until May last year. He left the parish and was suspended by his religious order after local residents accused him of molesting altar boys, church officials said. He is now in detention in Poland.
“Two of the charges concern acts that took place in the Dominican Republic, to the harm of citizens of the Dominican Republic, and two concern acts that took place in Poland and concern Polish citizens,” the prosecutor’s spokesman, Przemyslaw Nowak, told a news conference.
His whereabouts are not known.
Prosecutors say the priest who has been charged denies the accusations. If convicted, he could face 12 years in prison.
Under Polish law he cannot be identified by his full name now that he has been charged, so prosecutors are naming him as Wojciech G.
Prosecutors said they would be filing an application with a court to detain Wojciech G. for three months while they pursue their investigation.
(Reporting By Karolina Slowikowska; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
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Polish priest held over Dominican Republic sex abuse claims
BBC News Europe
17 February 2014
Police in Poland have arrested a Catholic priest suspected of committing sex offences against children in the Dominican Republic.
The 36-year-old, identified only as Wojciech G, is accused of molesting boys while serving as a parish priest on the Caribbean island.
He denies the accusations.
Last year Polish archbishop Jozef Wesolowski was recalled to Rome amid claims he sexually abused children in the Dominican Republic.
The 65-year-old archbishop, formerly the Vatican’s representative to the island, is one of the highest ranking Catholic Church officials to be investigated for alleged abuse.
In the latest case, Wojciech G was arrested at his home near Krakow on Monday and is expected to be formally charged on Tuesday.
Apologised
The BBC’s Adam Easton in Warsaw says the Catholic Church in Poland has largely been spared the sex abuse scandals that have made headlines in Ireland or the US.
But this case – and similar accusations against Archbishop Wesolowski, who served as the Papal Nuncio in the Dominican Republic until last August – are starting to change that.
Earlier this month, a Polish man who was abused by a priest as a child announced he was suing the country’s Roman Catholic Church – the first such civil case in the country.
The church leadership apologised to all child abuse victims last year, but insisted it would not pay damages for the crimes of individual clergymen.
Meanwhile, the UN has said the Vatican should “immediately remove” all clergy who were known or suspected child abusers.
In a report, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child also denounced the Holy See for adopting policies which allowed priests to sexually abuse thousands of children.