An Australian court has delivered a final judgment on Cardinal Pell’s sexual abuse conviction.
NewsOne Nigeria reports that Australia’s highest court on Tuesday, April 7, overturned the sexual abuse conviction of Cardinal George Pell, the highest-ranking Roman Catholic leader ever found guilty in the church’s clergy paedophilia crisis.
This burgeoning online news platform understands the 78-year-old Cardinal Pell, who was the Vatican’s chief financial officer and an adviser to Pope Francis, was sentenced to six years in prison last March for molesting two 13-year-old boys after Sunday Mass in 1996.
Cardinal Pell walked free on Tuesday after a panel of seven judges ruled that the jury ought to have entertained a doubt about his guilt. The judges cited “compounding improbabilities” to conclude that the verdicts on five counts reached in 2018, were “unreasonable or cannot be supported by the evidence.”
In a statement, Catholic Cardinal reiterated his assertion that he had committed no crimes. “I have consistently maintained my innocence while suffering from a serious injustice,” he said. “This has been remedied today with the High Court’s unanimous decision.”
