Canada let priest charged with sex abuse leave to Belgium: Oblate official

CANADA
Edmonton Journal

BY BOB WEBER, THE CANADIAN PRESS NOVEMBER 17, 2013

IQALUIT, Nunavut – A former priest who this week is to face 76 sex charges involving Inuit children may have been tried years ago but for a quiet nod from Canada that allowed him to leave the country, says a church leader.

Georges Vervust is the top official with the Belgian Oblates, an order of Catholic priests that sent Eric Dejaeger to several communities in what is now Nunavut.

Vervust sheds light on questions that have troubled Dejaeger’s alleged victims for nearly a decade: How was a man facing child abuse charges allowed to leave the country days before his trial? And why did it take so long for him to be returned?

“What I have heard is that he got advice from people from the Justice Department, off the record, that he should leave,” Vervust said in a Belgian documentary. He confirmed his comments to The Canadian Press.

Dejaeger’s trial beginning Monday includes allegations from Feb. 19, 1995, when he was originally charged with three counts of indecent assault and three counts of buggery, a charge no longer in the Criminal Code. They relate to his time as a priest in the community of Igloolik between 1978 and 1982.

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