Former priest of the Plaine des Palmistes, Father Ibrahim, will appear in court on Wednesday, April 13. His trial will last three days before the criminal court. Father Ibrahim is being prosecuted for raping and assaulting a parishioner and her son.
His trial will last three days and will be held in the middle of Holy Week. Father Ibrahim will appear before the Criminal Court of Reunion from Wednesday 13 April. The Criminal Court is like the Assize Court, but without the jurors. The verdict is expected on Friday. He faces 20 years in prison.
View the report of Réunion La 1ère:
Sentenced to the criminal court, Father Fabrice Ibrahim admits the rape and assault of a minor and his mother while serving on the Plaine des Palmistes
The former priest of the Plaine des Palmistes is being prosecuted for rape and assault “by a person who abuses the authority conferred on him by his position”. His victims are a parishioner and her then 14-year-old son.
This morning in court, Father Ibrahim . recognizes “most of the facts, except for certain details”. “I learned to better understand my guilt and my responsibility”he adds.
In 2017, a parishioner and her son accused the priest of abusing them between 2013 and 2015. They describe a very authoritarian priest who does not hesitate to threaten them with spiritual consequences if they tell anyone about the sexual acts they perform.’ on it regularly. They then describe themselves as being under the influence.
Two years after the events, in 2017, the case came to light. Consumed by trauma, the then 18-year-old son confides in the chaplain of the university where he studies. The chaplain refers to his hierarchy that will pass the elements on to justice.
Father Ibrahim admits to using his authority to obtain sexual favors from the mother and her son. He speaks of weakness on his part.
At that time, the Bishop of La Réunion, Monsignor Gilbert Aubry, believed that Fabrice Ibrahim “the church dirty”† He is a civil party in this process.
Father Fabrice Ibrahim grew up in Saint-Paul in a family where religions mix. Her mother is Catholic and her father is Muslim.
As a child, he improvised as a priest and performed in fake masses with his cousins. After university, he went to Holy Orders and did part of his seminary in La Réunion and then in Bayonne.
On August 18, 2002, he officially became a priest. Appointed for five years in the Sainte-Geneviève parish in Saint-Joseph, then three years in Sainte-Rose.
In 2010, he arrived at the Plaine des Palmistes, where he says he felt good. In the village he is regarded as a divisive man with strong ideas, some support him, some do not. He calls himself a traditionalist.
Fabrice Ibrahim lives in a cassock, advocates the return of Mass in Latin. He publicly spoke out against equal marriage, calling the law of Taubira an unnatural law.
The last cases involving a priest in Reunion go back several years. A Sainte-Marie priest was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2012 for raping and assaulting a 14-year-old altar boy.
In 2013, a priest from Bras-Panon was sentenced to five years in prison for a series of assaults on a dozen young boys between 1989 and 1995 and in 2009.
