Priest accused of US abuse won't fight extradition (AP)

[Yahoo! News]

AP - A Roman Catholic priest charged with sexually assaulting a teenage parishioner in Minnesota said Tuesday he would willingly leave his native India and try to clear his name in the courts if the United States tried to extradite him.

The Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, 55, has never faced the criminal charges in the United States. The bishop who oversees him has said that he overruled a Vatican recommendation that Jeyapaul be removed from the priesthood and applied his own lesser punishment instead.

"I am ready to go because I am innocent. I am ready to prove I did not do any wrong," said Jeyapaul, who works in the diocese's office handling paperwork for schools.

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