A priest of 63 years was indicted Wednesday, November 21 in Toulouse, suspected of rapes on minors.

A priest aged 63, suspected of rapes on several minors in the 1980s and 1990s, was indicted Wednesday in Mulhouse and locked, was learned Thursday concordant sources.

Arrested on Tuesday, he is being prosecuted for "aggravated rape on a minor of 15 years and rape aggravated by anyone who abused the authority conferred on him by his function on a minor," said Edwige Roux-Morizot, prosecutor of the Republic of Mulhouse, at the during a press conference.

Robert Bonan, pastor of the parish community of Haut-Florival, near Mulhouse, was arrested Tuesday at his home after several complaints from "people who have rubbed shoulders in his pastoral activities , " detailed the prosecutor, without however specify the number of complaints filed.

Some facts not prescribed

The "very old, but not prescribed for some" facts date back to the 1980s. During a search of the suspect's home, the investigators gathered "evidence to suggest that there would be other victims," continued Edwige Roux-Morizot.

According to a source close to the investigation, Robert Bonan's computer equipment was seized. "There are important charges against him," commented Edwige Roux-Morizot.

"In the context of his pastoral activity, we know that he has been in contact with very young people and, to that extent, it is not excluded that there may be victims who have not yet spoken. She observed, inviting the people concerned to "make contact" with the gendarmerie services of the Upper Rhine.

"It is to the people who bore their testimony, in great suffering, and to their families, that we think first," said Luc Ravel, Archbishop of Strasbourg, in a statement. "I assure the justice services of our full cooperation ," he added.

Contrary to what was said by a source close to the investigation to AFP Thursday, the gendarmes were not put on the trail of the priest by suicide this summer of a person who would have evoked in a letter of touching on the part of the clergyman, said the prosecutor. "There was a suicide in an environment close to this priest, but we do not know if there is a link between this suicide and the case," she said.