POLAND: A Polish court yesterday gave a 65-year-old Roman Catholic priest a two-year suspended jail sentence for sexually abusing six girls, mostly of primary school age, local news agency PAP reported.
The court also banned the priest from working with children for eight years, in line with a request by the prosecution.
The sentence provoked disbelief among child protection groups but was not considered lenient by one senior Roman Catholic bishop in Poland.
"The court granted such a lenient sentence because it took into consideration the priest's prior clean record and his function within the Church," Mr Arkadiusz Trojanowski, spokesman for the court in the south-eastern town of Krosno, said.
High-profile sex abuse cases involving the clergy are rare in Poland, where some 95 per cent of the population is at least nominally Catholic.
"I am outraged by this decision," said Ms Miroslawa Katna, a deputy with the leftist opposition Social Democrats and head of the Committee to Protect Children's Rights. "It's incomprehensible that prosecutors treat crimes against children, the most cruel crimes, as some kind of less important or less harmful category," she added.
The priest had denied the charges and his lawyers said they may appeal.
The trial of the priest, Michal M., drew huge media attention, in particular after leading daily Gazeta Wyborcza campaigned for prosecutors to pursue the case after they dropped it in 2001.