Moscow : The court of Moscow yesterday issued the sentence against Mikhail Orekhov, condemned to 14 years in prison for intentionally killing the Jesuit priest Victor Betancourt. He was however acquitted of murdering another Jesuit, Fr Otto Messmer, Superior of the Society of Jesus in Russia. The bodies of the two priests were found on the morning of 29 October 2008. Russian Fr. Otto Messmer, 47 year old, and head of the Jesuit community in Russia, and Fr. Victor Betancourt, 42, of Ecuador both lived in the apartment, home to the community, in Petrovka Street 19. Since 2002 the first, since 2001 the second, worked in the pastoral care of the Catholic community in the capital, engaged in the parish of St. Louis. Immediately, the police had suggested the double murder was carried out by someone deranged or drunk. At the time, the director of the Vatican press office, a Jesuit, said that in all probability the murders had occurred at two different times over a distance of days.


Investigators accuse Orekhov of both murders, but the court acquitted him from the death of Fr Messmer. For the federal investigation committee, animosity between the two was the root cause of the murder of Fr Betancourt. From statements made to Interfax, the investigation "found that Orenkhov killed Betancourt while drunk, motivated by personal enmity, after the victim tried to get him to commit a sexual act together".

For the Russian Catholic Church the two priests were "two ardent pastors, beloved by the faithful." Among Catholics, there is embarrassment and concern. The "sex" connotations in the murder of Fr Betancourt seem incredible, and instead moreover the death of the Jesuit, who was the superior of the house and all the Jesuits in the Russian Federation, remains a mystery.

Courtesy : AsiaNews