Cardinal George Pell will be freed from jail after Australia’s highest court overturned his convictions for child sexual abuse.<\/p>\n
The ex-Vatican treasurer, 78, had been the most senior Catholic figure ever jailed for such crimes.<\/p>\n
In 2018, a jury found he abused two boys in Melbourne in the 1990s.<\/p>\n
But the High Court of Australia quashed that verdict on Tuesday, meaning the cardinal will immediately stop serving a six-year jail sentence.<\/p>\n
The Australian cleric has maintained his innocence since he was charged by police in June 2017.<\/p>\n
A full bench of seven judges ruled unanimously in Cardinal Pell’s favour, finding that the jury had not properly considered all the evidence presented at trial.<\/p>\n
“The High Court found that the jury, acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant’s guilt,” said the court in its judgement.<\/p>\n
It was the cardinal’s final legal challenge, after his conviction was upheld by a lower court last year.<\/p>\n
Pell was among the highest-ranking figures in the Church’s global hierarchy.<\/p>\n
Made a cardinal in 2003, he was summoned to Rome in 2014 to help clean up the Vatican’s finances.<\/p>\n
He forged a reputation as a disciplined Church leader who held strict conservative views against same-sex marriage, abortion and contraception.<\/p>\n
Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"