STOCKHOLM: Swedish prosecutors yesterday charged a Spanish doctor with sexually abusing 52 child patients, including several counts of aggravated rape between 2015 and 2017. The 29-year-old is accused of having assaulted a total of 70 patients, including 18 adults, while working in several hospitals and health facilities in Sweden. Prosecutors claim the doctor, who has been held in custody since December 2017, had examined child patients' genitals in cases when it was "medically irrelevant".

The children were aged between two and 12. In four of the cases, "the crime should be deemed aggravated by (the doctor's) recklessness against the child's young age and abuse of his position," prosecutors said in the charge sheet. The man, who denies the charges, is also accused of filming some of the assaults, and of possessing child pornography. _ AFP