Cardinal George Pell, a formerly one of the most powerful prelates in the Vatican, will be released from prison after the Australian High Court overturned his historic convictions for sexual abuse of minors on appeal. The 78-year-old Australian was acquitted of five counts of sexual violence against two 13-year-old choir boys in the 1990s, for the benefit of the doubt.
This decision by the highest Australian court is a great victory for Cardinal Pell, who had firmly proclaimed his innocence. Reacting shortly after the announcement of his acquittal, the cardinal considered that the judgment had remedied "a serious injustice".
“I don't want my acquittal to add to the pain and bitterness that many feel; there is certainly enough pain and bitterness, "he added in a statement released before his imminent release from prison. “However, my trial was not a referendum on the Catholic Church nor a referendum on how the Church authorities in Australia dealt with the crime of pedophilia in the Church. The question was whether I had committed these horrible crimes, and that is not the case, "he said again.
"Reasonable doubt as to guilt"
Former Secretary of Economy of the Holy See, Cardinal Pell was sentenced in March 2019 to six years in prison for sexual violence committed against these two adolescents in 1996 and 1997 in Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne (southeast ), city of which he was the archbishop. In December 2018, a jury convicted him for these offenses, before the decision was confirmed by a panel of three judges of the Court of Appeal of the state of Victoria (southeast) last August, in a shared stop (2 to 1).
On Tuesday, the Australian High Court in Brisbane ruled that there was "a significant probability that an innocent person would have been convicted because the evidence did not establish his guilt according to the level of evidence required".
The seven magistrates of the High Court thus unanimously considered that the lower court had “failed to consider the question of whether there remained a reasonable possibility that the offense had not been committed, so that 'there should have been a reasonable doubt as to the plaintiff's guilt'.
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- Pedophilia