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INPRIMATU
Elgoibar and Bilbao report more cases of church sexual abuse
  • Several neighbors denounce the sexual abuse committed by a Elgoibar priest in the 1960s when they were children. The newspaper Berria collects testimonies of abuses committed by the abbot who has identified as "Don Andoni". On the other hand, EiTB has found that the pederasta cleric of the José Done College in Bermeo also committed sexual abuse when he was transferred to the bilbaíno district of Santutxu.
Urko Apaolaza Avila @urkoapaolaza 2022ko abenduaren 15a

The cases of ecclesiastical pederastia do not cease, and the testimonies are revealing again and again in recent years, even in the Basque Country. This media, for example, reported in 2019 the case of the spiritual director of the Derio Seminary, Irunés Manuel Estomba.

On this occasion, the complaints have been made by the neighbours of Elgoibar and Berria has taken their testimonies. Jone Arruabarrena, journalist, tells the children who taught Latin at the school of the San Roque neighborhood the abuses committed in the 1960s by a cure called "Don Andoni", whose name has not yet been revealed.

Don Antonio, with the excuse of punishing the children, brought them home on Sundays: "He shook my hand over my thighs and touched me. I was scared, paralyzed," one of them told the journalist. This testimony silenced what happened and could not tell anyone until he was 40.

Don Antonio, with the excuse of punishing the children, forced them to go home on Sundays

Arruabarrena has also known more such cases and many citizens have assured him that they were so "conscious." When the priest moved to Mount Hill, it seems that he continued there with sexual abuse.

Pederasta de Bermeo, pederasta also in Bilbao

EiTB has assured that in the 1980s the "Brother Felipe", sexual abuse of children from José Done Bermeo College, when moving to Bilbao, continued its attacks. Specifically, he attended the Berri-Otxoa School in Santutxu between 1982 and 1988, and this media outlet has found the existence of sexual abuse of several people.

"I got the children's love and then I took them to the office, sat them on their knees and touched them, kissed them ...", said one of them. According to another testimony, he made unobjectionable abuses and took the children into groups to "commit abuses one by one."

The case of Bermeo’s pederasta was known thanks to a study by Asier Sánchez, a journalist from EiTB, who has identified at least 13 victims. Precisely, this media has now learned that the pederasta has recognised three of them who have committed abuses and even called for "forgiveness", "but he did so in video and in a private meeting." These victims want to apologise publicly.