Vatican Arrests Ex-Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski on Pedophilia Charges

/in /by

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican on Tuesday arrested a former archbishop accused of paying for sex with children while he was a papal ambassador in the Dominican Republic, the first-ever arrest inside the city state on charges of paedophilia. Jozef Wesolowski, a Pole who was defrocked by a Vatican tribunal in June, has been placed under house arrest awaiting a criminal trial, the Vatican said in a statement.

 

The 66-year-old Wesolowski is the most prominent church figure to be arrested since Paolo Gabriele, a former papal butler convicted in 2012 of stealing and leaking private papers of former Pope Benedict XVI. Unlike Gabriele, Wesolowski has not been detained in the Vatican prison, a couple of rooms attached to a courthouse, but was granted house arrest in a Vatican apartment for medical reasons.

 

Wesolowski was recalled to Rome by the Vatican last year when he was still a diplomat in Santo Domingo and relieved of his duties after Dominican media accused him of paedophilia.

 

Read More: Vatican Arrests Ex-Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski on Pedophilia Charges – NBC News.com.