Vatican Arrests Former Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski on Paedophilia Charges

VATICAN CITY
International Business Times

By Maria Khan
September 23, 2014

In the first-ever arrest of its kind inside the Vatican, a former archbishop accused of paying for sex with children, while he was serving as a Vatican ambassador in the Dominican Republic was arrested on Tuesday.

A statement issued by the Vatican said that Jozef Wesolowski has been placed under house arrest awaiting a criminal trial.

The arrest comes after Pope Francis insisted, “that such a grave and delicate case has to be handled without delay, with the just and necessary rigour.”

Wesolowski was earlier detained in the Vatican prison but later granted house arrest in a Vatican apartment for medical reasons.

Wesolowski, 66, was recalled to Rome last year and defrocked by a Vatican tribunal in June after Dominican media pressed paedophilia charges on him while he was serving as a diplomat in Santo Domingo.

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