SPAIN
The Local
AFP
12 April 2017
A Spanish court on Tuesday acquitted a Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing a teenage altar boy, in a case in which Pope Francis had pushed for an investigation.
The court in the southern city of Granada, where the abuse was alleged to have taken place, ruled there was insufficient evidence against 63-year-old Roman Martinez.
It said the young man’s testimony during the trial held in March had inconsistencies and contained “absolutely improbable aspects”.
Martinez had been charged with “continued sexual abuse, with the introduction of a bodily member anally and attempt to introduce the penis” involving an underage boy between 2004 and 2007.
His accuser, born in 1990, would have been 14 when the alleged abuse began.
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