Dominican Republic Seeks Arrest of Polish Priest

GlobalPost
September 27, 2013

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130927/dominican-republic-seeks-arrest-polish-priest

Prosecutors in the Dominican Republic said they have asked Interpol to issue an arrest order for an alleged pedophile priest alleged to have abused several young boys.

"We will use whatever judicial resources are needed, whether on the local level or internationally" to bring fugitive Polish priest Wojciech Gil to justice, Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito said in a statement.

Gil went missing in May after allegations of child sex abuse were raised.

A court in the city of Santiago, some 155 kilometers northwest of Santo Domingo, has declared him a fugitive from justice, and Interpol has been asked to help track him down.

Authorities believe Gil has fled the country: press reports say he has surfaced in his native Poland on the pretext of seeking medical treatment.

Gil's young male victims allege that he dressed them up as women and made them parade before him like fashion models before sexually assaulting them.

Prosecutors investigating the case say they also have confiscated pornographic photos that Gil possessed of young children.

The scandal surrounding Gil has erupted at the same time as a second pedophilia scandal, in which parents of several children in the Dominican Republic have accused the Vatican's now-sacked envoy to the Caribbean nation of pedophilia.

Last month, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said an investigation was underway in Rome into allegations of child sex abuse against Josef Wesolowski, a 65-year-old Pole who served as papal envoy in Santo Domingo for about five years.

The now-ousted papal envoy was ordained in 1972 by then-Archbishop of Krakow, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, who later became Pope John Paul II.