Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City
THE Director of Public Prosecution, Richard Butera, has ordered the arrest of a Catholic priest in Nebbi district who allegedly defiled two girls, and possibly infected them with HIV.
Butera yesterday said evidence was sufficient to charge the Rev. Fr. Santos Constatino Wapokura. “That matter is clear: He should be charged,” Butera said in an interview.
He explained that the resident state attorney had already been instructed to charge the priest.
“He should have appeared in court and if he has not, I wonder why,” he said. In an earlier interview, the head of criminal investigations, Edward Ochom, ruled out settling the matter out of court, saying the offence was capital.
“We can afford to do that for chicken thieves, but not for a matter like this. He should be charged,” Ochom said.
The directive, Ochom said, had been communicated to the Police upcountry. It was unthinkable for a suspect on such a charge, he said, to be let off the hook out-of-court.
However, despite Ochom’s and Butera’s orders, the priest had not yet been re-arrested by press time.
Asked about the matter, the district Police commander, Alex Wabwire, in turn asked: “What is your interest in the case?”
The release of the priest had shocked the nation. Women rights activists in Nebbi are planning a demonstration over the matter.
Wapokura, 45, the parish priest of Pakwach, is accused of defiling a 14-year-old girl who was serving in the church. Wapokura had been in Police custody twice over the same allegations. His latest release was ordered by the resident state attorney, Innocent Obale, purportedly to allow the parties resolve the matter out of court.
Upon his arrest last month, the Police said the clergyman tested positive for HIV and upgraded his offence to aggravated defilement. He will be hanged if convicted. The priest dismissed the allegations as a ploy to taint his name.
One of the complainants told the Police that Wapokura would often ask her to go to his house, where he would follow her and force her into sex. On another occasion, the girl alleged, she was at the priest’s home with other visitors when Wapokura sexually assaulted her after sending away the other people.
Wapokura’s woes add to the long list of accusations of sexual misconduct by Catholic priests, which have rocked the Church lately. Another Catholic priest was arrested and charged with defilement in Gulu recently.
Worldwide, the church has been forced to pay out millions of dollars to victims
Ends
leooderaomolo@yahoo.com
MIGUNA MIGUNA PLEASE!
Much as we acknowledge your brilliance in the academic world and not any less in your zeal to advise the Honorable Prime Minister I humbly request you to cut out that aspect of your ego that delves on your CV, part in liberation of the country, since many of us did but are unsung, and your brilliance since the majority of Kenyans who are supporting Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga are not all so lucky to have such an excellent a CV and academic prowess but their votes will change the lives of Kenyans in a way that only a tsunami can.
Every time you blow up your trumpet you injure the less endowed democrats who are falling over one another in their honest support of the Prime Minister in HIS LONG WALK TO JUSTICE FOR ALL in Kenya.
DR ODIDA OKUTHE.
ICC HAS PACKED ITSELF WITH GEMA LAWYERS TO TRY THE KENYAN 2007/2008 PEV
What are the chances that the victims of the 2007/2009 post elections violence will get justice at the ICC now that it has packed itself with Kikuyu lawyers who will be defending the suspect perpetrators of the post elections violence, see the Daily Nation of 8t May 2010? What will stop these lawyers from defending injustice where the suspects come from their ethnic groups?
Luis Moreno Ocampo should be aware of this serious loophole and plug it before the victims are punished twice, first by the perpetrators of the crimes and second by their ethnic lawyers. Waki list already reads very much like the result of information which was weaned from the witnesses who had been coached by the lawyers from whose communities committed the atrocities, on what to tell the Waki inquiry commission, information deliberately meant to punish the victim communities. Luis Moreno Ocampo should also check that too.
DR ODIDA OKUTHE
The case of the Ugandan priest is just a tip on the iceberg. Many innocent girls and boys suffer at the hands of such priests. They say “the church is both holy and sinful.” My question is: Could such priests reform if allowed to marry? Jokanyanam duoka uru!