The Vatican said on Thursday it would cooperate with Dominican Republic authorities investigating the Holy See’s former ambassador on suspicion of child sexual abuse and denied the envoy had been recalled to protect him from local justice.
Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, 55, was recalled last month and relieved of his duties after local media accused him of sexual abuse of children.
In the first formal statement on the case, the Vatican said its sex crimes prosecutor had opened an investigation into the allegations.
Cardinal Nicolas Lopez Rodriguez of Santo Domingo personally informed Pope Francis in late July that there had been “serious accusations” against Wesolowski, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said in the written statement.
The Vatican had formally told the Santo Domingo government “of its intention to cooperate with Dominican authorities if they request it,” Lombardi added.
He denied suggestions in the local media that the archbishop, a Pole who had been in the post for nearly six years, had been recalled in order to shield him from Dominican justice.
“The recall of the nuncio is in no way an attempt to help him avoid responsibility for whatever is eventually ascertained,” the spokesman said.
Dominican Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate Wesolowski, whose whereabouts are not known.
Dominican authorities have said they might seek Wesolowski’s extradition. The Vatican does not have an extradition treaty with the Dominican Republic.
The special prosecutor, Bolivar Sanchez, said on Wednesday his office had interviewed seven boys aged between 13 and 18 who the authorities believed had been sexually abused.
“The testimonies of these children have been heartbreaking, convincing and delicate,” he said.
The Venezuelan government on Monday said that it would close its embassies in Norway and Australia, and open new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe in a restructuring of its foreign service, after weeks of growing tensions with the US. The closures are part of the “strategic reassignation of resources,” Venezueland President Nicolas Maduro’s government said in a statement, adding that consular services to Venezuelans in Norway and Australia would be provided by diplomatic missions, with details to be shared in the coming days. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had received notice of the embassy closure, but no
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
EXTRADITION FEARS: The legislative changes come five years after a treaty was suspended in response to the territory’s crackdown on democracy advocates Exiled Hong Kong dissidents said they fear UK government plans to restart some extraditions with the territory could put them in greater danger, adding that Hong Kong authorities would use any pretext to pursue them. An amendment to UK extradition laws was passed on Tuesday. It came more than five years after the UK and several other countries suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong in response to a government crackdown on the democracy movement and its imposition of a National Security Law. The British Home Office said that the suspension of the treaty made all extraditions with Hong Kong impossible “even if
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
RSS