Warning: this story accommodates references to sexual assault.
A Ukrainian Catholic priest collapsed in a Saskatoon courtroom and needed to be defibrillated after a choose declared him responsible of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old woman in a church.
Janko Kolosnjaji, 71, was in Saskatoon provincial court docket Wednesday to listen to the decision in his judge-alone trial for one depend of sexual assault of a minor. Saskatoon police charged Kolosnjaji in April 2023, a couple of month after a girl reported her 13-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted on the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of St. George within the Nice Hill neighbourhood.
Choose Lua Gibb discovered Kolosnjaji responsible and scheduled sentencing for June 16. Gibb discovered the woman didn’t consent to a kiss from Kolosnjaji and rejected the defence that he kissed the woman on the lips as a part of a cultural greeting and never for sexual functions.
The accused and the sufferer each testified in court docket. The sufferer’s id is protected by a publication ban.
Kolosnjaji suffered a medical emergency and collapsed within the courtroom after listening to the responsible verdict, in response to his lawyer Brian Pfefferle. Courtroom sheriffs supplied medical care till paramedics arrived.
“It is not on daily basis that you just see somebody with the paddles on their chest, no shirt on, laying sprawled out in a courtroom,” Pfefferle stated. “Yesterday we noticed that. However the professionalism of the workers right here was on show and we’re actually grateful for that.”
Kolosnjaji is recovering in hospital. Courtroom adjourned for the day and resumed Thursday morning to set a sentencing date, which is scheduled for June 16 in Saskatoon provincial court docket.
Kolosnjaji stays on administrative go away from the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Saskatoon pending an inside church investigation and court docket sentencing.
“He’ll stay on administrative go away till the ultimate dedication within the proceedings underneath canon regulation,” in response to a church information launch.
“The Eparchy sincerely regrets that the complainant suffered the indignity of being the topic of inappropriate contact by an grownup male, not to mention a member of the clergy.”
A conviction of sexual assault of a minor carries a compulsory minimal sentence of six months in jail. Pfefferle stated his shopper plans to make a constitutional problem of the obligatory minimal at sentencing.
Pfefferle stated mitigating elements embrace Kolosnjaji’s lack of earlier prison document, his age and well being, and the offence being on “the low finish of allegations, which quantity to a really transient peck or kiss.” Kolosnjaji will ask the court docket to provide him a conditional sentence in the neighborhood.
Help is offered for anybody who has been sexually assaulted. You may entry disaster traces and native assist providers via this Government of Canada website or the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. In the event you’re in speedy hazard or worry in your security or that of others round you, please name 911.
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