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	Plaintiffs in Chile Won’t Appeal Dismissal of Sexual Abuse Case By Pascale Bonnefoy New York Times November 25, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/26/world/americas/26chile.html?_r=1 The plaintiffs in a sexual abuse case against a prominent Chilean priest will not appeal a court ruling dismissing the case, their lawyer said Thursday. A criminal judge investigating the accusations against the priest, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, 80, closed the case abruptly this week, ruling that there was not enough evidence to charge him. The four plaintiffs, who said they were abused by Father Karadima as teenagers, have until Friday to appeal the decision, but plan not to. “They are disappointed, tired and angry, and feel they have done all they can do,” their lawyer, Juan Pablo Hermosilla, said in a telephone interview. “Their main goal was to turn the light on and show what Karadima has done all these years, and they believe that they have accomplished it, that the abuses have been clearly proved, regardless of the court decision.” One of the plaintiffs, Dr. James Hamilton, who said he had been abused by the priest for 20 years, starting when he was 17, criticized the proceedings against Father Karadima as “extraordinarily irregular.” “We would have liked to appeal, but with defense attorneys like his, who have the Appeals and Supreme Court eating out of their hands, and a number of powerful people who continue to protect Karadima, we knew it would be an uphill battle that we were likely to lose,” he said. Father Karadima still faces the possibility of church sanction. The archbishop of Santiago, Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz, sent an investigation report prepared by the Roman Catholic Church in Chile to the Vatican in June, asking it to rule in the case. Father Karadima, who could not be reached for comment, has insisted that he is innocent. A criminal complaint filed in April accused him of molesting the four plaintiffs, three when they were minors, over the last two decades in El Bosque Parish in Santiago. Since hearings in the case began, four other men have come forward with similar accusations. Mr. Hermosilla said the state prosecutor had gathered testimony from dozens of witnesses that “established a pattern of decades of abusive behavior.” But he said that the judge, Leonardo Valdivieso, never gave the parties access to the investigation report until the day he closed the case and withheld testimony and other evidence that could have advanced it. Judge Valdivieso dismissed the case without having Father Karadima face his accusers, as they had requested. Defense lawyers presented the court with a number of medical certificates asserting that the priest could have a heart attack if forced to do so, Mr. Hermosilla said. Complaints of sexual abuse by Father Karadima were filed with the church as early as 2003. A church investigation was opened in 2004 but suspended shortly afterward. Cardinal Errazuriz reopened the investigation in late 2009, and in June he referred the case to the Vatican. “We trust the Vatican will rule appropriately,” said Juan Carlos Cruz, a plaintiff who said he was abused by Father Karadima as a teenager. “Because as for the Chilean courts, we have done all we could possibly do, exposing our lives and reliving the abuses, at an enormous personal and emotional price.”
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