Przemyslaw Nowak (C), spokesman for the District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw. Photo: PAP/Leszek Szymanski
Przemyslaw Nowak, spokesman for the District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw, has confirmed that “several charges” will be brought against Father Wojciech G. (full name withheld under Polish privacy laws), following the priest's detainment on Monday near Krakow.
Nowak also revealed that the house in which Father Wojciech G. had been residing in recent months has been searched.
However, Nowak said that he was not at liberty to discuss the details.
Although authorities in the Dominican Republic have already formally charged the priest, Poland has no extradition treaty with the Caribbean country at present, and it is expected that the priest will be tried in Poland.
Father Wojciech G. had served as head of a parish in the highland town of Juncalito for close to a decade.He was on holiday in Poland last year when allegations emerged against him, and he refused to return to his parish.
The Dominican Republic's Attorney General sent the case files, which include 650 documents, to Poland last autumn.
“The material received from the Dominican Republic, together with our own material, is sufficient to justify bringing charges against him,” Nowak said.
However, he noted that the Dominican Republic would be asked to provide some supplementary documents, as some are “inaccurate, illegible or incomplete.”
Last year, Father Wojciech G. denied the accusations, claiming that they had been concocted by a drugs mafia that objected to educational programmes for children he had led in the region.
Father Wojciech G.'s is one of two current cases involving Polish clergymen in the Caribbean country. The Dominican Republic's attorney general transferred case files to the Vatican last year concerning Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, former papal nuncio in the country.
It is understood that the archbishop is residing in Rome or the Vatican City, and the Holy See has confirmed that it will not extradite the clergyman, and will instead lead its own investigation. (nh)
Source: PAP