MELBOURNE, Australia – Police arrested a Catholic priest today when he arrived in Melbourne after being deported from Samoa for failing to disclose his conviction in a child molestation case.
The Rev. Frank Klep faces five indecent assault charges alleging offenses against boys dating to 1973, police said.
Authorities on Samoa in the South Pacific on Wednesday ordered Klep deported, giving him two days to leave, Samoan official Auseugaefa Poloma Komiti said, according to The Dallas Morning News.
Komiti said Klep’s superiors in the Salesians of Don Bosco religious order face an immigration inquiry because they also allegedly failed to make the disclosures about Klep when he arrived in Samoa.
Klep was convicted in 1994 of sex offenses during the 1970s against a student at the Salesian College, north of Melbourne, where he had been principal. He was sentenced to nine months of community service.
In 1998, Klep was sent to the Samoan Mission, despite having been charged by Australian authorities with additional sex offenses. That year, the Australian Federal Police informed Samoan authorities of Klep’s background, Australian Justice Minister Chris Ellison said.
Samoan officials were investigating how another Salesian priest with a history of sexual abuse also entered the country and whether there was a pattern to the movements.
“It’s becoming clear this was well-coordinated,” Komiti said. “They are looking at Samoa as if it is a safe haven for (abusive) priests. That’s a big slap in the face in any book.”
On Tuesday, leaders of the Salesians of Don Bosco denied allegations that they moved priests accused of sexual abuse from country to country to avoid law enforcement.
The Dallas newspaper reported Sunday that the Salesians of Don Bosco transferred priests accused of abuse, allowing them to start new lives in unsuspecting communities and continue working in church ministries.
In a statement posted on its Web site Tuesday, the order said it “categorically denies such behavior and condemns every kind of abuse of minors.”
The Salesians, a large order founded in 19th-century Italy, work mainly with poor children.
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