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The most senior Catholic Church leader to be charged with sexual abuse has appeared in an Australian court for a hearing that will determine whether he will face a full trial by jury.
Cardinal George Pell, 76, faced testimony from his alleged victims, who spoke to the Melbourne court via video link from an undisclosed location.
No details of the complainants or the crimes, described by police as historical sexual assault offences, have yet been released to the public.
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Testimonies given during the course of the hearing will remain secret.
Cardinal Pell, Pope Francis’ former finance minister and former archbishop of Sydney, was charged last June with sexually abusing multiple people in his home state of Victoria.
They came five years after a royal commission began an investigation into how the Catholic Church and other institutions had responded to sexual abuse of children in Australia over a number of decades.
Cardinal Pell’s lawyers told the court last month that the first complainant approached police in 2015, 40 years after the alleged abuse.
They came forward after seeing media coverage of the commission, they said.
The Cardinal denies all of the allegations and has said that he intends to return to his job at the Vatican once the criminal charges are resolved.