Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Catholic Savona, Liguria, Italy · 2004

Italy: Savona-Noli diocese priest's conviction for abusing a migrant minor in his custody, final since 2010

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

Catholic priest responsible for the diocese's 'Migrantes' programme for unaccompanied foreign minors

Organization

Diocese of Savona-Noli

Spiritual nexus

The victim was a foreign minor formally placed in the priest's custody by the diocese's own migrant-care programme — an authority relationship the court itself treated as an aggravating factor.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2004-10-15 · conviction, final

    Tribunale di Savona (trial), Corte di Cassazione (final), Italy. Don Giorgio Barbacini, the priest responsible for the Savona curia's 'Migrantes' community for unaccompanied foreign minors, was convicted on 15 October 2004 of abusing a minor placed in his custody, with the abuse dated to spring 2000. He received three years and six months' imprisonment, with the aggravating factor that the victim had been formally entrusted to his custody. The Court of Cassation confirmed the sentence definitively in 2010; Barbacini had by then fled abroad and remained a fugitive until his arrest in 2015 at age 79. He was subsequently laicised.

Appellate history

  1. 2010

    Court of Cassation confirmed the sentence definitively; the priest remained a fugitive abroad until his 2015 arrest.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • custodial and pastoral authority over a foreign minor placed in his care by the diocese

Primary record

Sources

regional press final disposition and arrest report AlassioFutura: Savona - Arrestato don Giorgio Barbacini: era latitante da tempo. Nove anni dopo la condanna in Cassazione si chiude con l'arresto il primo scandalo per pedofilia della diocesi Savona-Noli.

Report tracing the 2004 conviction, 2010 Cassazione finality, and 2015 arrest as a fugitive.

specialist advocacy press survey report Rete L'Abuso: Abusi sessuali del clero, in Liguria 69 casi in 25 anni: in 5 condannati in via definitiva.

Regional survey confirming Barbacini as one of five definitively-convicted Liguria clergy, with custody/guardianship noted as an aggravating factor.

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