New allegations against Luk D. (50), a Belgian priest who had been convicted of sexually abusing minors before, have surfaced in an interview with CNN on Thursday morning.
Luk D. (50) had already been convicted in 2012 in Belgium to 18 months conditional prison sentence after he confessed to having sexually abused two underage boys at the Don Bosco boarding school in Ghent.
Despite a restraining order against him saying he cannot be in close vicinity to children, the Salesians of Don Bosco, a religious congregation that the man was part of, sent him on a mission to the Central African Republic in 2013, where he started working with a local bishop in the town of Kaga-Bandoro and came into contact with vulnerable children.
Later, D. joined the Catholic aid organisation Caritas Centrafrique. "He had been brought here as director of Caritas for logistic assistance. But instead, he took advantage of his position to sodomise my son," said Onono Alain, the father of the then 13-year-old boy from a poor catholic district in the Central African Republic, reports CNN.
"What he did with my son is not normal. I think he did it often, because he was always together with my son. When my son got home, he had a little money with him. The last time my son came back from him, he told me what happened. He does not lie to me. I believe him," he added.
Since the new charges came to light, Luk D. was immediately called back to Belgium by the Salesians. He is now staying in a Flemish monastery, where he is not allowed to have contact with minors. He is also not allowed to publicly practise his priestly function.
The public prosecutor's office in Leuven has started an investigation, and the church started one as well. On Tuesday, the Belgian branch of Caritas International was shocked that a condemned Father "with such a past" had been sent to Africa, reports Het Nieuwsblad.
Earlier this week, Carlo Loots, the spokesman for the Salesians of Don Bosco, stated that D. strongly denied the new allegations from Africa. He also said that he had not made any new victims in our country since his conviction.
Maïthé Chini
The Brussels Times
