Former nun jailed for 20 years over role in sexual abuse of deaf children in Mendoza

A court in Mendoza on Thursday sentenced former nun Kumiko Kosaka to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing deaf children at a religious institute in western province.

Kosaka, 51, was initially acquitted in 2023 of sex crimes committed against children at the Instituto Próvolo in Luján de Cuyo between 2005 and 2016.

But last month, Mendoza’s Supreme Court overturned the acquittal and ordered that she be sentenced.

She was found guilty of two counts of sexual abuse as an accomplice and three as the principal offender.

Kosaka, who left the religious order after she was accused, appeared in court accompanied only by her lawyer.

She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, an AFP reporter observed.

After sentencing, she remains free for now with previously presented appeals still pending.

Nevertheless, the court banned her from leaving the country or the province of Mendoza, where she must find a fixed address.

“A huge damage is being repaired,” prosecutor Alejandro Iturbide, who had sought a 22-year sentence, told reporters.

Ariel Lizarraga, the father of one of the victims, said he was satisfied that the ruling had brought him “closure” after a decade of legal proceedings.

“With all the ups and downs we’ve had, we have found the justice we came seeking for my daughter and for all the victims of the Próvolo case,” he said outside court.

A 2019 trial found two priests, Horacio Corbacho and Italian-born Nicola Corradi, guilty of sexually abusing deaf children aged between four and 17. They were sentenced to 45 years and 42 years and six months in prison respectively. Corradi died in 2021.

Two other defendants, gardener Armando Gómez and former altar boy Jorge Bordón, were sentenced to 18 and 10 years respectively.

Kosaka and eight other women were acquitted at the 2019 trial, but that ruling was later overturned in her case.

The Próvolo case became one of the biggest scandals involving Argentina’s Catholic Church, including allegations of a cover-up surrounding the sexual abuse of children at the institute.