MINNESOTA/INDIA
Grand Forks Herald
By: Stephen J. Lee, Grand Forks Herald
A former Greenbush, Minn., Catholic priest appeared in court today in New Delhi related to charges filed in 2006 in Roseau, Minn., alleging he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl, according to The Associated Press in a report out of India.
But the extradition process to return the Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul from his native India to Roseau to face the charges in state district court could take three months, Indian government officials said.
Jeyapaul, 57, was arrested Friday near the southern Indian town of Erode based on a warrant from Interpol, according to Indian news reports.
He was a visiting priest in the Catholic Diocese of Crookston from September 2004 to September 2005, serving in Thief River Falls for a month or so, then about 10 months in Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Greenbush and a nearby parish in Karlstad, Minn.
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