Catholic priest Renato Kizito, in the back of a police car at Kilimani Police station on May 26, 2011, where he recorded a statement on a sexual molestation complaint. He was freed on Friday. TOM MARUKO
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 27 – Catholic priest Father Renato Kizito was set free by the police on Friday over lack of evidence to charge him in the latest sex abuse allegations against the missionary.
Fr Kizito who had been in police custody since Thursday, was earlier on Friday morning taken to the Kibera Law Courts but no charges were preferred against him.
He was driven to the Criminal Investigations Department Headquarters on Kiambu Road, where he was released by the police at around 12.30pm.
The renowned priest had been accused by his 26-year-old male secretary of sodomising him on Tuesday night within Riruta area of Dagoretti, in the outskirts of the capital Nairobi.
“A 26-year-old man who works as Fr Kizito’s secretary lodged a complaint that he had been sodomised by this particular priest and we are acting on it,” Kilimani Divisional police chief Bernard Muli told journalists at the station where the priest was questioned on Thursday.
Police detained the priest as they conducted forensic tests to build a case against him.
“The priest has recorded a statement and we have now taken him to hospital for forensic tests. We want to get samples from him so that a DNA examination can commence,” Mr Muli said, adding: “Samples have already been taken from the man who alleges he was sodomised and doctors have proved that he was indeed assaulted. What is remaining is to know whether indeed it is Fr Kizito who sodomised him.”
Fr Kizito, 49, an Italian priest of the Comboni Missionaries appeared shocked and did not speak to journalists and when Capital News asked him why he was at the station, he only replied “I don’t know.”
It was the second time the priest is being implicated in a sexual abuse case in the last two years.
In 2009, the Catholic priest was accused of sexually molesting young boys under his care but he denied the reports and instead termed them as a “case of blackmail, defamation and extortion.”
The priest, who has worked in Kenya for over 20 years, offering charity work, dismissed a news item that had been aired by independent local television, KTN, showing a video footage of him with the boys.
After investigations, detectives at the CID concluded that evidence linking him to the alleged charges was tampered with and subsequently concluded the investigations.
Soon after police dropped the investigations on him, Fr Kizito placed paid up advertisements on local newspapers, where he claimed that those who accused him at the time had been manipulated to do so.
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