Priest accused of sex abuse faces nine years in prison for alleged crimes in Malaga

On 31 January, the State Attorney General's Office ordered the 17 superior prosecutors to report proceedings of sexual abuse or assault within religious institutions. Among the cases under investigation there are a total of 68 in Spain, five in Andalucia and one in Malaga.

In Malaga the priest was arrested in August 2018 in the so-called Operation Sandrina, which began when authorities in America shared with Spain the IP addresses used to share child pornography files through peer-to-peer (P2P) image sharing programmes.

One of the IP addresses corresponded to an octogenarian woman who lived alone in the capital of Malaga. However, the agents of the cybercrime Scection of the National Police force discovered that her son lived in the next apartment. He was a priest belonging to the Diocese of Alcalá de Henares who had moved to the city to take care of his aging mother. He also used her WiFi.

The police found thousands of files, photos and videos, of children being sexually abused and exploited. He was charged with the production, possession and distribution of child pornography and received two year in prison, even though the Prosecutor's Office has asked for nine.

Officers found a grotesque collection of paraphernalia at the priest’s home including realistic-looking dolls of naked children, used condoms and hundreds of minors’ clothing, balloons and candies. They also found 25 external hard drives and one internal drive which stored videos of the priest abusing children, girls aged six to nine, he taught.

The police managed to identify one of the minors, who was six years old when the events occurred. Her mother filed a complaint. In the second case, the Malaga Prosecutor's Office accuses the priest of two crimes of sexual abuse of minors. The Office is seeking a total of nine years in prison. If convicted, the priest will also be banned from working with children.