Cardinal Pell's final appeal against child sex abuse
March 10, 2020
Cardinal George Pell will take his appeal against child sex abuse convictions to Australia's highest court on Wednesday.
The hearing is almost a year since he was sentenced to six years in prison for molesting two 13-year-old choirboys in Melbourne's St. Patrick's Cathedral while he was the city's archbishop in the late 1990s.
Pell, who once helped elect popes and previously held the position of Pope Francis' finance minister, is the highest-ranking Catholic Church official ever convicted of child sex crimes.
Read more: Opinion: After Cardinal Pell verdict, Catholic Church must reform
He was found guilty by a unanimous jury decision in December 2018.
In August 2019, the Victoria Court of Appeal threw out his request to overturn his convictions after judges ruled against Pell in a 2-1 majority decision.
During the trial, only one victim testified as the other died of a heroin overdose in 2014. Before dying, he never told anyone of the abuse he suffered. The remaining victim went to the police after attending his friend's funeral.
Defense: 'Erroneous method'
Pell's lawyers argue the judges in the Victoria Court of Appeal applied an "erroneous judicial method" that required their client "to establish actual innocence as opposed to merely pointing to doubt."
The defense attorneys also dispute there was enough time for Pell to have molested the boys, that St. Patrick's Cathedral was a "hive of activity" so someone would have realized. In addition, they state it was physically impossible for him to have pulled apart his cumbersome robes to commit the sexual acts.
The prosecution, however, described the latest appeal as "problematic," stating the defense's argument "glosses over evidence" that supports the victim's testimony.
Wednesday's two-day hearing will be heard by five or seven judges, who could throw out the case after the initial arguments. If that were to happen, Pell would have no further avenue of appeal and would remain in prison.
jsi/aw (AFP, AP, Reuters)
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