Australia: Cardinal Pell, convicted in 2018 of sexual assault, is free

Cardinal George Pell was released from prison on Tuesday, April 7, 2020. The Australian High Court considered that the jury which had found him guilty of sexual assault on minors had not sufficiently taken into account the testimony of the defense . William WEST / AFP

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Former Cardinal George Pell was released after winning an appeal to the highest court in Australia. He was sentenced in December 2018 to six years in prison for sexually assaulting two choir boys in the 1990s, when he was Archbishop of Melbourne.

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with our correspondent in Sydney, Grégory Plesse

It is a thunderbolt in Australia. After spending just over a year in a Melbourne prison, former Vatican treasurer George Pell was released on Tuesday April 7.

The Australian High Court found that the jury, which had found him guilty of sexual assault on minors in December 2018, had not sufficiently taken into account the evidence provided by the defense. While stressing that the testimony of the victim, the other having died, was " perfectly credible and reliable ". It was therefore because there was insufficient evidence of his guilt that George Pell was acquitted.

A decision that creates a lot of misunderstanding among the Australians, but which welcomes George Pell, who has always claimed his innocence. The former cardinal, just an hour after the verdict was announced, said he did not want his accuser.

Former Vatican number three, 78-year-old Cardinal Pell was sentenced to six years in prison, nearly four years of which closed in December 2018 for sexual assault on minors. The facts date back to the 1990s and concern two young boys, then choir boys of Melbourne Cathedral. One of the victims died in 2014 from an overdose of heroin.

► Read also : Six years in prison for former Australian cardinal George Pell

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