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Priests linked to paedophilia
24/05/2005 13:11 - (SA)
Syracuse - Three Catholic priests are among a total of 186 men being investigated on Tuesday by Italian police probing the distribution of illegal paedophile material on the internet, Ansa news agency reported.
The suspects, most of them reputable middle-aged professionals, are accused of owning pornographic videos featuring four to eight-year-old children.
Police said the material was downloaded from an "invisible" internet site hosted by an Italian server and which was only accessible through a password. The site was not detectable via search engines and had an elaborate "protection net" to safeguard its customers and prevent them from being identified.
Police traced the users by breaching the protection net and tracking computers connected to the site.
The investigation was kickstarted by Telefono Arcobaleno, an Italian association set up to combat child abuse and which constantly monitors the internet in search for paedophile material.
The raids on Tuesday were co-ordinated by magistrates in Syracuse, Sicily, but involved suspects from all over Italy.
Police found a number of paedophile videos in the computers of the three priests as well as in those of other professionals, including a town mayor and a medical specialist. - dpa
- SAPA
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