Pedophile priest captured in Mexico

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After conducting an account study on the social network, the OIJ experts determined that there were many similarities with the account previously used by the priest

The use of a social media profile on Sunday led to the arrest in Mexico of Costa Rican priest Mauricio Víquez, wanted in his country for rape and sexual abuse against a minor, an official source said Monday.

The director of the Judicial Investigation Agency of Costa Rica (OIJ), Walter Espinoza, told reporters that Víquez left Costa Rica last January for Panama and that since then his precise whereabouts were unknown, although there were indications that he was in Mexico. 

Espinoza explained that the OIJ received confidential information about a social media profile that was supposedly being used by Víquez.

After conducting a study of the account in the social network, the experts of the OIJ determined that there were many similarities with the account previously used by the priest, mainly in terms of content and basic information. 

Espinoza said that all the information was shared with the Mexican Federal Police and that it was determined that the social network profile was managed from a Mexican mobile phone, which allowed to locate the device in San Nicolás de los Garza, Nuevo León, Mexico.

“We had a fairly accurate knowledge that the people who used the social network were the subject we were looking for. The person who used the network was named Antonio (who is the priest’s middle name) and noted that on April 18 he died an uncle of his and we verified that an uncle of Víquez had died, “commented the director of the OIJ.

Espinoza said there are details of the investigation that cannot be shared.

Mauricio Víquez left Costa Rica last January after being criminally denounced in October 2018 for rape against a minor, a case he would prescribe next September when the victim turns 28, 10 after his age of majority.

A criminal court in Costa Rica issued an international arrest warrant against Víquez on February 19 for the crime of rape against a child, which occurred in 2003, when he was serving as a priest in the parish of San Juan Bautista de Patarrá de Desamparados , Saint Joseph.

The priest also faces nine other canonical complaints filed by men who were mostly altar boys in churches in Tres Ríos, province of Cartago (center), and Patarrá. These complaints are not processed in the criminal field because they are prescribed.

This case led the Congress to pass a law last April that extends the statute of limitations for sex crimes committed against minors by 15 years.

Now the cases of sexual crimes against minors will have a prescription time of 25 years from the age of the victim.

After the case of Víquez another series of complaints against priests for abuse and rape of minors came to light, which has generated a crisis within the Catholic Church this year.

In Costa Rica, a country of 5 million inhabitants and where the Catholic religion is stipulated as official in the 1949 Constitution, the crisis forced the Catholic Church, also accused of allegedly covering up cases, to apologize twice this year for the sexual crimes committed by priests, and to commit to giving higher priority to the attention of the victims.

The Church has repeatedly said that it was unaware of Víquez’s whereabouts and had offered the necessary collaboration to the judicial authorities.

Source: excelsior

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