A criminal court in Caen, northwestern France, issued a 15-year prison sentence on Monday for Lebanese priest Mansour Labaki, who was convicted in absentia on charges of child rape and sexual assault. The 81-year-old Maronite priest was found guilty after two hours of deliberation. Under the ruling, his name will be added to the sex offender registry. Labaki resides in Lebanon and did not attend his trial, according to Agence France-Presse.
An international arrest warrant was issued against Labaki in April 2016, but the Lebanese church refused to extradite him. The public prosecutor, Pascal Chau, who requested the 15-year sentence for the defendant, stated that Labaki "never stopped defaming the complainants and went so far as to accuse them of madness." He added that the priest "also exerted direct or indirect pressure on some victims or their families," justifying the requested sentence by the "seriousness" of the crimes associated with him.
At the beginning of the session, the prosecutor mentioned that "the investigation was long, very long. Mr. Labaki did not respond at all to the judge's requests, claiming he had health issues that we could not verify." In 2012, the Vatican's ecclesiastical court condemned Mansour Labaki on the same charges. In 2013, several of his victims filed a complaint with the French judiciary. However, many of the accusations made by these individuals against the Lebanese priest, which date back to the 1990s, had expired due to the statute of limitations.
Labaki established and managed a center for hosting orphaned Lebanese children, after the Lebanon War, in the vicinity of Caen from 1991 to 1998. The priest was accused of sexually exploiting several girls at the center and assaulting them during that period. Labaki was prosecuted in France on charges of rape and sexual assault against three girls, but only one of them took civil action in the case. Her lawyer, Solange Domic, stated that "the other two girls are sisters and received several threats in Lebanon."
In her argument, the lawyer emphasized the "consequences" of what the accused did to his victims, confirming that "one of them attempted suicide several times, another suffered from anorexia and depression, while a third was forced to live in exile and was accused of madness, resulting in the separation of the two sisters."
Celeste Aikiki, a niece of Mansour Labaki, who has previously accused him of sexually harassing her, remarked that "the conviction will serve as an acknowledgment of the victims' innocence. It is essential for healing, especially since he shows no remorse and presents himself as a victim of a conspiracy." Aikiki traveled from the United States to France to testify. Labaki has continually denied the allegations against him.
During the session, Labaki's defense attorney, Florence Roll, pleaded for his acquittal, pointing to "the hundred individuals interviewed during the investigation who provided very positive testimonies" about the defendant. The lawyer insisted in her arguments that the facts attributed to her client "have not been proven to have occurred," and therefore requested the court to "acquit him, at least due to the presumption of doubt." It should be noted that since the start of the lawsuits against him, Labaki has been living away from the public eye in a monastery affiliated with a Lebanese order, according to Agence France-Presse.
