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Arrested man isn't priest
Nicaragua clears him as fugitive molester
03:55 PM CST on Wednesday, February 1, 2006
Nicaraguan police said Thursday that a suspect they arrested this week is not fugitive Catholic priest Enrique Vásquez, an admitted child molester with ties to a prominent Central American candidate to succeed the pope.
Overview:
Runaway priests hiding in plain sight
Part 1:
Convicted sexual abuser and fugitive works with kids under his religious
order's wing
Part 2:
Cardinal offered sanctuary to admitted molester Part
3: Cleric slipped out of U.S., continues to work in Mexico Part
4: Church aid, legal lapses leave cleric free to roam The suspect, who was arrested near Nicaragua's northern border with Honduras, bore a striking physical resemblance to Father Vásquez, authorities said. But a comparison of fingerprints and other documents led them to clear the suspect, a Venezuelan who was in Nicaragua illegally and will face deportation, authorities said. Father Vásquez fled an abuse investigation in his native Costa Rica in 1998, then worked in at least two U.S. dioceses, spent time at a Mexican clergy treatment center and served most recently at a remote parish in Honduras. He vanished from Honduras in March. His boss there was Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez, who heads the Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa and is a potential papal successor.
• Government moves to deport fugitive priest
• Letters:
In English: 1 | 2 | 3
En español: 1 | 2 | 3
• Salesians dispute report that they moved suspects in abuse
