GREECE
Aljazeera
Teo Kermeliotis
Greek police say they have arrested a French cleric suspected of sexually abusing unaccompanied refugee children he had sheltered in his house in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-biggest city.
The 52-year-old man, who belongs to the Franciscan Church of France, allegedly molested four homeless Pakistani boys, aged 14 to 18.
The children, who had been sleeping rough around Thessaloniki’s main railway station, told police officials that they accepted to stay at the man’s home in January after he had offered to provide them with food and housing.
“When questioned, the children said they suffered repeated and persistent sexual abuse by the man,” a police spokeswoman told Al Jazeera on Wednesday.
“They say that he took advantage of the fact that they were homeless and without food to sexually abuse them.”
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