PRIEST CONVICTED IN FRANCE MAY HAVE ABUSED DOZENS IN LEBANON

Sun 14 November 2021:

Mansour Labaki, a Lebanese priest who was sentenced to 15 years in jail in absentia by a French court for sexually abusing three girls in France, is estimated to have sexually molested 50 individuals in France and twice that number in Lebanon, according to a French lawyer.

The 81-year-old priest was convicted on November 8 by the Caen Criminal Court in western France of sexually abusing the girls in a dormitory he opened and administered for Lebanese orphans in Douvres-la-Delivrande between 1991 and 1998.

A case was filed in April 2013 by one of the victims who was sexually assaulted at the age of 13.

Since then, Labaki has remained in Lebanon and has never attended the proceedings. He does not have the right to challenge the verdict, and if he enters France, he will be imprisoned.

Labaki, a Maronite priest, author and composer, is known in both Lebanon and France for working particularly with orphans. He has reeprtedly founded two orphanages in Lebanon and one in France, and has reeprtedly won 15 international book prizes, among them an award from the French Academy and the International Prize for Human Rights.

“I’m afraid as long as the Lebanese government does not hand over Labaki, France has no chance of sending him to prison,” Solange Douminic, who has been the victim’s lawyer since 2013 and one of the main lawyers of the case, told Anadolu Agency.

“He never came (to court) because he knew he would be arrested,” the lawyer said, adding that it is believed he sexually abused or raped many more.

“We were able to count that 50 people were subjected to sexual abuse or rape as part of the investigation (in France),” Douminic said. “We can easily imagine that this number is double in Lebanon.”

Previously, Labaki had denied all charges leveled against him, calling them a conspiracy.

Interpol issued an international arrest order against him in 2016. Lebanon, on the other hand, took no action against him.

Celeste Akiki, Labaki’s nephew and one of the three victims in issue, previously stated that her uncle has great ties with religious leaders, which is why he is safe in Lebanon.

According to Lebanese media the priest was also convicted of child molestation by the Vatican and is currently carrying out his sentence of solitary penitence in a monastery in Lebanon.

An expert on the Vatican legal system said the priest was unlikely to come under investigation from Lebanese authorities, despite recent statements from Pope Francis vowing to take allegations of abuse more seriously than the church has in the past.

_____________________________________________________________________________

FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:

TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent