Australian Cardinal George Pell freed from prison in sexual abuse case

Cardinal George Pell was freed from prison on Tuesday after the High Court of Australia overturned his convictions for the sexual abuse of two boys in the 1990s. The judges considered that there was “a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted because the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof”, according to the ruling obtained by Efe news. It was Pell’s last legal avenue to have his convictions overturned and he said he held no “ill will”. “I hold no ill will toward my accuser, I do not want my acquittal to add to the hurt and bitterness so many feel; there is certainly hurt and bitterness enough,” Pell said in a statement after the verdict. “However my trial was not a referendum on the Catholic Church; nor a referendum on how Church authorities in Australia dealt with the crime of paedophilia in the Church,” he added. “The point was whether I had committed these awful crimes, and I did not.” The 78-year-old cardinal was held in Barwon Prison, some 68 km south of the city of Melbourne, from which he was released at about 12.30 p.m. (local time).

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