Poland indicts priest on 2 counts of pedophilia in Dominican Republic

Warsaw.- The Warsaw Office of the Prosecutor on Tuesday indicted Polish priest Wojciech Gil on four counts of pedophilia and against the sexual freedom of children, two of them in Poland in 2006, before his departure to head a town parish in the Dominican Republic, EFE reports.

After Gil’s arraignment which lasted one and-a-half hours, Office of the Prosecutor spokesman Przemyslaw Nowak said the defendant pleaded not guilty and refused to answer most of the questions by prosecutors.

Nowak confirmed that a judge has been asked to extend Gil’s pretrial detention.

He said prosecutors have interviewed dozens of witnesses over the past months and collected evidence, in addition to documents submitted by Dominican counterparts.

The official said of the four charges, three are for acts of sexual content and one for having intercourse with a minor.

If convicted, the priest faces up to 12 years in prison according to Polish law, since children below 15 years of age figure in all charges.

Nowak added that the investigation began on information provided by Dominican officials to the Polish Embassy in Bogota.

The Dominican Justice Ministry says Gil sexually abused at least seven boys in the town of Juncalito, Santiago province, but left last year after local media revealed the case, together with pedophilia charges filed against bishop Jozef Wesolowski, also a Polish prelate and the Vatican’s envoy to the Dominican Republic.