ARCHIVED - Murcia priest sentenced to 7 years in prison for sexual abuse of a minor
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
The priest is accused of a further two counts of sexual abuse in San Pedro del Pinatar
The Provincial Court of Murcia has sentenced a priest known as Antonio L.Z. to seven years and nine months in prison for sexual abuse of a 13-year-old minor. The priest was the parish priest of the church of San Juan Bautista in Yecla and chaplain of the Virgen del Castillo hospital in the same town when the complaint was received, at which time he was removed from his duties.
Antonio L.Z. was assistant parish priest of the church of San Pedro del Pinatar between 2006 and 2013 and later moved to Yecla, where he is from originally.
While he was working in San Pedro, he met the family of the young boy who later became his victim, and he struck up a close relationship with all of them. He even had the keys to their home and it was common for him to sleep in the house. While he lived in Yecla, the young boy even went to visit him several times and stayed over at his home.
In his trial, it emerged that once the teenager turned 13, the priest took advantage of this relationship to subject the minor to sexual abuse consisting of touching and oral sex. During this time, the sentence underlines, in order to maintain “his ascendancy over the minor”, he gave the boy multiple gifts and bought him meals. The victim’s academic performance and his emotional and affective behaviour were affected as a result of the abuse to which he was subjected.
It was not the family that brought these events to the attention of the court, but the Church.
“It all arose when, during a day spent together, they were asked to confess something that they had not confessed before, which provoked him to tell another priest what had happened to him years before,” read a court transcript.
Shortly afterwards, the bishopric brought the facts to the attention of the public prosecutor's office.
As well as being sentenced to more than seven years in prison, the priest has additionally been obliged to stay away from the young man until five years after leaving prison. The sentence also includes a probation measure for five years and the prohibition for Antonio L.Z. to exercise any profession or trade that involves regular contact with minors for five years after his release from prison. Finally, the sentence establishes the payment of 25,000 euros in civil liabilities to the victim.
The Bishopric in Murcia expresses its “total rejection, once again, and total repulsion for the crimes that the judicial resolution attributes to this priest against the victim, with the aggravating circumstance that he was a minor”. In addition, they recall that the now disgraced priest “continues to be suspended from the exercise of his priestly ministry until the canonical penal process that is underway is completed”.
When the news broke, the priest’s neighbours were surprised: “He is a very affable person; the truth is that we are surprised by everything that is being said,” explained one.
However, this is not the only complaint against the priest Antonio L.Z. who, according to judicial sources, has two other trials pending for alleged sexual abuse of other minors. The case of this young man – for which the Prosecutor’s Office originally asked for 12 years in prison – is the first to reach the ears of the Bishopric and the hands of the law, but soon two others will do so, all dating back to his time in San Pedro del Pinatar.
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