Costa Rica will prosecute excura who abandoned a child in the desert

A court of Costa Rica ordered the opening of a trial against a former priest with surnames Brenes Villalobos, who is suspected of abandoning a child of his nephew in the desert of Arizona, United States, an official source reported.

The Public Ministry confirmed this Monday that the Criminal Court of the I Judicial Circuit of San José, decided to take the case to trial against Brenes, accused of the crimes of smuggling of migrants and abandonment of incapacity.

The date of the trial must be defined shortly by a Criminal Court of San José.

According to the prosecution’s accusation, Brenes “took his nephew to Mexico by air and entered the United States with him by land, where he left him abandoned in the Arizona desert.”

The case dates back to June 2018 when U.S. immigration agents found the 6-year-old boy by then alone in the desert, and this indicated that his uncle gave him instructions to continue the journey, where he would be rescued by someone.

On November 6, 2019, Brenes He was detained by the Costa Rican authorities in the town of Sardinal, Guanacaste province (west), where he served as a parish priest, and the following day the Catholic Church removed him from his duties.

On September 5, 2018, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Costa Rica reported that the child was released into custody to his mother in USA, where she resides, after the minor was staying in a migrant shelter.

This is the first case of an unaccompanied Costa Rican child that has been registered, at least in recent years, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Costa Rica Historically, it has been a receiving country for migrants and not so much a sending country, although in the United States there is an important colony of Costa Ricans, mainly in New Jersey.

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