VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
ANSA - Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata [Rome, Italy]
January 23, 2024
A Catholic priest on Tuesday got two and a half years in jail from a Vatican appeals court for sexually abusing a minor at a Church ‘pre-seminary’ in what is known as the ‘pope’s choirboys case’ Father Gabriele Martinelli, a former student at the Preseminario Pio X, saw his first-instance acquittal overturned.
In October 2021 Martinelli and another priest, Father Enrico Radice, were acquitted after prosecutors asked for jail terms of six and four years respectively.
On Tuesday Martinelli was found guilty of sexually abusing a fellow former seminarian who was a minor at the time of the abuse in 2010-2012.
He abused the boy, a year younger than him, at the choirboys’ school.
Monsignor Radice, former dean of the pre-seminary, was on trial for complicity in sexual violence.
Father Radice was suspected of not stopping the allegedly illicit acts and failing to report them, prosecutors said.
Rome prosecutors are also pursuing charges against the two men.