Fugitive Priest Vasquez Arrested in Nicaragua
Nicaraguan authorities said Tuesday night they had arrested a man
matching the description of a Costa Rican priest fleeing sexual
molestation charges, but said the man's identity had not been
confirmed.
Authorities have been searching for father Enrique Vasquez on an
Interpol warrant on behalf of Costa Rican officials.
Nicaraguan immigration officials had confirmed that Vasquez
apparently had entered Nicaragua.
Nicaraguan National Police spokeswoman Miriam Torres said the man
matching Vasquez's description was captured in the northern province
of Matagalpa, which is near the border with Honduras. Police are
waiting for Vasquez' fingerprints to be sent from Costa Rica to
determine whether they match the suspect's.
Vasquez fled Costa Rica after a criminal complaint was filed by the
mother of a boy he allegedly molested.
Nidia Barbosa, Nicaragua Deputy Director of Immigration, said
Vasquez entered the country on July 1 from Honduras.
She said he also had visited briefly from June 21 to 22, also
entering from and leaving to Honduras.
Meanwhile, Emilio Leon, an investigator with Interpol in Costa Rica,
said in a story in Wednesday's editions of The Dallas Morning News
that Bishop Angel San Casimiro was not cooperating with efforts to
find Vasquez. "He must know where Enrique Vasquez is," Leon said.
Church officials in Nicaragua told the newspaper they didn't know
where Vasquez was, but wouldn't tell law enforcement officials if
they did find him.
"Our function is not to alert the police," Bishop Juan Abelardo
Mata, secretary of the Nicaraguan Bishops Conference, told the
newspaper. "We would alert religious authorities."
On Monday, the children's rights organization Casa Alianza said that
another Costa Rican youth had come forward with allegations against
the priest.
The man, now 23, said he had been abused while serving as an altar
boy in Vasquez's church in the Costa Rican city of Orotina, about 35
miles southwest of San Jose.
"We are very worried at the number of victims with whom we have
spoken. There are many youths who have suffered because of the
abuses committed by Father Vasquez," Bruce Harris, executive
director of Casa Alianza, said in a news release.
The organization has criticized church leaders in Honduras and Costa
Rica for failing repeatedly to tell police about the whereabouts of
a man they knew was wanted on charges of abusing children. It said
it has received telephoned threats warning it to drop the issue.
Vasquez had been working in the town of Guinope in Honduras until
March 2003, a few days before the international warrant was issued
for his arrest.
Herenia Trejo, who lives in the southern Honduran village of El
Paraso, told The News the reports about Vasquez were a lie. She said
the priest visited her home in May and "he slept in the same bed as
my daughters and my son."
The News reported in its Wednesday editions that Costa Rican
prosecutors have renewed their investigation of whether San Casimiro
should face charges for protecting Vasquez.
In 2002, the Hartford Courant newspaper reported that church
officials there had allowed Vasquez to continue to work even after
learning of the abuse allegations in Costa Rica.
In June, the Dallas Morning News profiled Vasquez as part of a
series following a yearlong investigation of runaway Roman Catholic
priests.
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