Cardinal George Pell, whose child sex abuse convictions were quashed by Australia's High Court, said on Tuesday that he did not hold a grudge against his accuser
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th April, 2020) Cardinal George Pell, whose child sex abuse convictions were quashed by Australia's High Court, said on Tuesday that he did not hold a grudge against his accuser.
Earlier in the day, the court satisfied the appeal of Pell, who was found guilty for abusing two choir boys at St Patrick's Cathedral in the mid-1990s when he was Archbishop of Melbourne. Chief Justice Susan Kiefel ruled that the cardinal be immediately released from prison.
"I hold no ill will to 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, as quoted by the Australian SBS broadcaster, adding that the point was whether he committed "these awful crimes," and he did not.
Pell, who has always maintained his innocence, also thanked in his statement his supporters, his family and his legal team, and said that what he had to go through was "serious injustice."
The jury found Pell guilty of five charges in December 2018, taking into account the claims of one of the plaintiffs saying that the cardinal had abused him and another 13-year-old choir child at the cathedral in Melbourne in 1996. In March 2019, Pell was sentenced to six years in prison. Last November, the Australian High Court granted Pell's appeal.
