Casablanca: a French priest suspected of sexual abuse on minor refugees

Father Antoine Exelmans is said to have set up a "system of sexual exploitation" of minor migrants and refugees over a period of four years, according to the news site Enass, which specifies that a complaint was filed in May 2024 with the public prosecutor’s office of the Casablanca Court of Appeal. "As soon as the facts were brought to our attention, we initiated the procedures provided for by Church law and fully cooperated with the competent civil authorities, both in Morocco and abroad, by transmitting the results of our investigation," said the Archbishop of Rabat, Mgr Cristobal Lopez Romero, in a press release, stating that he had "taken the reports received very seriously."

According to the same source, a 17-year-old asylum seeker from Guinea-Conakry "would be among the six alleged victims of Father Antoine," mostly Guineans and a Cameroonian. The media claims that the priest "had regular sexual relations with this minor" for "months" before returning to France. As part of the investigation, three of the six victims were heard by the National Brigade of the Judicial Police (BNPJ) of Casablanca, the site informs. In his note, the Archbishop specifies that "the only minor victim we know of" has been taken care of by the Church, assuring that the priest is not on the run, but "currently under house arrest [...] and has been heard by the judicial police in France."

At the end of its investigation, the Church had decided to prohibit the priest from "having any contact with minors" without the presence of another adult as well as "psychological support." To recall, Father Antoine Exelmans was assigned to the Diocese of Rabat in 2016. In July 2024, the Archbishop of Rabat had acknowledged having been alerted to the behavior of this priest "in the service of young migrants," fearing "abuse on vulnerable persons." In an open letter published at the end of September, a collective of victims of the French priest Yves Grosjean, in detention in France for aggravated sexual assault, denounced the "silences" of the dioceses of Dijon and Rabat in the face of the reported abuses.