Xanana Gusmao’s sons ‘disappointed’ after their father attends accused paedophile’s birthday party

SYDNEY (NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA)
ABC

February 9, 2021

By Anne Barker

The sons of Timor Leste’s former president Xanana Gusmao have expressed their disappointment to the victims of a former priest facing child sexual abuse allegations, after their father visited him for his birthday at his home in Dili.

Alexandre Sword-Gusmao, 20, and his brothers Kay Olok, 18, and Daniel, 16, wrote to the victims of former Catholic priest Richard Daschbach, who has been charged with sexually abusing girls at a remote Timorese orphanage that he ran for decades.

Xanana Gusmao, also the former prime minister, was filmed late last month visiting Mr Daschbach at his Dili home where he is under house arrest, toasting him on his 84th birthday with cake and drink.

Mr Daschbach, an American-born missionary who first arrived in Timor Leste in 1966, is regarded by many Timorese as a hero for his role in saving children during the country’s independence struggle.

But he was officially defrocked by Pope Francis in 2018, and expelled from the organisation SVD, or Divine Word Missionaries, after he admitted to the sexual abuse of minors.

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