Europe News
Court jails German priest for six years for sex abuse
Jan 26, 2012, 12:17 GMT
Braunschweig, Germany - A German court convicted a priest Thursday of sexually abusing three boys and sent him jail for six years in one of the worst recent abuse cases to come to light in Germany's Catholic Church.
The 46-year-old man, whose name was withheld under privacy guidelines for media, was convicted in Braunschweig on 214 aggravated counts of sex with a minor and 36 lesser counts of the same charge.
The court heard the parish priest abused the children during youth camps.
'He exploited the trust of their parents,' said Judge Manfred Teiwes as he passed sentence. The defendant admitted the charges after a plea bargain at the start of the trial fixing an upper limit on the sentence.
Allegations of hundreds of cases of sex abuse by clergy have swept Germany in the past two years, but many happened years or decades ago, meaning a legal bar on bringing prosecutions.
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