DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
GlobalPost
AFP
The Dominican Republic on Monday announced it cannot prosecute a former papal envoy suspected of child sex crimes because treaty obligations give the Vatican full jurisdiction.
“Under the Vienna Convention, the prosecution of diplomats lies within the jurisdiction of the country that issued their accreditation,” the Caribbean island nation’s attorney-general Francisco Dominguez Brito told reporters in Warsaw.
It would therefore be up to the Vatican to prosecute former Polish archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, who is in custody after being defrocked in June for abusing chidren.
The Vatican is preparing for a landmark trial against the 66-year-old, who was stripped of his job in June after a Church tribunal found he had abused minors during his 2008-13 stint as the Holy See’s ambassador to the Dominican Republic.
Wesolowski, who is being held in custody at the Vatican, is charged with sexually abusing minors and possessing child pornography in what has become one of the Church’s most damaging paedophilia cases.
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