Priest gets 30 years for sex with teenager
Pastor Dale Morgan
Priest gets 30 years for sex with teenager*
Thursday, August 10, 2006 Posted: 1404 GMT (2204 HKT)
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (Reuters) -- A Tanzanian court has jailed a
Roman Catholic priest for 30 years for having sex with a 17-year-old boy.
It was the first time a priest has been convicted of a sex crime in the
east African country, where having intercourse with an under-age
companion and a member of the same sex are illegal.
The court rejected pleas from a defense lawyer that Sixtus Kimaro, 38,
should be pardoned because he was also a young man.
"That is not a valid excuse for something that is not accepted in
society. The clergy must be held in high esteem and so he should have
been responsible for his actions," magistrate Pellagia Khaday said on
Wednesday.
The magistrate sentenced Kimaro to 30 years in prison and said he should
also pay the boy two million shillings ($1,554) compensation.
Prosecutors had called for a life sentence. Officials from Tanzania's
Roman Catholic Church were not available for comment.