COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka said Thursday does not know the whereabouts of a priest wanted in Los Angeles, California on charges of sexually abusing a teen-age boy 11 years ago.
Early this month he left the Sri Lankan town where he had been living, a bishop said.
Police in Los Angeles are seeking the extradition of the Rev. Thilak Jayawardene, charged in January 1991 with six counts of oral copulation involving a 17-year-old boy. The events allegedly occurred in 1990 in the priest's bedroom and once in the youth's home.
"We do not know where he is at present ... but will continue trying to locate him," Bishop Winston Fernando told The Associated Press.
Fernando said that Jayawardene has lived in Badulla since returning from the United States in 1990, but does not work there.
Badulla, also the name of the local Catholic parish, is about 200 kilometers (125 miles) east of Colombo, the capital.
"He left the parish about two-and-a-half weeks ago and is yet to return," Fernando said.
Jayawardene, who was ordained in Sri Lanka, had worked at Incarnation Church in Glendale, a Los Angeles suburb, as associate pastor from 1987 to December 1990, when he disappeared during a police investigation. California authorities said Jayawardene vanished after a police detective told his attorney there was probable cause for his arrest and that he should surrender.
A California prosecutor is reviewing a police request for his extradition, which is likely to be approved because Sri Lanka signed a new extradition treaty with the United States in 1999, prosecutors in Los Angeles said Wednesday.
Bishop Fernando said he received a letter last week from Cardinal Roger M. Mahony in Los Angeles requesting Jayawardene's whereabouts.
"We hope to get through to him soon and I will respond to Cardinal Mahony shortly afterward," Fernando said.