P. Luis Alejandro Bazalar García

In 2013, Luis Alejandro Bazalar García was accused of sexually abusing a 17-year-old seminarian who served as an altar boy at the Ayacucho cathedral, where Bazalar was a priest. In January 2016, Bazalar was convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison. In August 2016, Peru’s Supreme Court overturned the conviction.

According to the prosecution’s charges as summarized in the Supreme Court’s eventual acquittal ruling, Bazalar met the boy in July 2012 and, with his superior’s consent, became his spiritual guide. Prosecutors said he isolated the boy from his family and from friends his own age, taught him to drink large amounts of wine, and promised to pay for theology studies and take him travelling in Europe. Prosecutors charged that he had anal intercourse with the boy in late October 2013. In the early hours of October 30, 2013, Bazalar came to the boy’s home and left with him. In the confrontation that followed, an aunt suffered a broken arm and the boy cut his wrist; prosecutors alleged that Bazalar had told him to kill himself (“mátate”). A second former seminarian alleged that in 2011, while Bazalar was a formator at the seminary, he had touched his genitals and threatened him with expulsion if he told anyone; this young man later withdrew his account.

Archbishop Salvador Piñeiro said he learned of the complaint from the Public Ministry on October 31, 2013.  In a press release, he said that he had suspended Bazalar from ministry until the civil and church proceedings ended, opened a penal disciplinary process in the archdiocesan curia, and pledged full cooperation with the Huamanga prosecutor.

On July 10, 2015, according to Piñeiro, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a decree finding “sufficient moral certainty” of Bazalar’s guilt under canon law and dismissing Bazalar from the clerical state.

On January 22, 2016, an Ayacucho court convicted Bazalar of seduction of the 17-year-old and of seriously injuring the aunt. It sentenced him to eight years in prison and S/10,000 in civil reparations. It acquitted him of attempted kidnapping, breaking and entering, and the charge of indecently touching the other seminarian in 2011.

On August 16, 2016, the Supreme Court overturned both convictions and acquitted him of all charges, ruling that there was not sufficient evidence ‘to annul the presumption of innocence.’ It found the boy’s statements contradictory, held that Bazalar had acted as a spiritual guide seeking only to support him, and found that he had pushed the aunt in self-defense. It ordered his immediate release and the expunging of his criminal record.

Bazalar disputed the Vatican’s decision to dismiss him from the priesthood. He said the ruling was retaliation for exposing wrongdoing at Cáritas del Perú and in the archdiocese, and he has repeatedly sought to appeal it. In recent years, he has gained visibility in Peruvian politics.