Fugitive British priest lived in Kosovo under false name

A British former priest wanted for child sex abuse lived as a historian in Kosovo, was treated to cakes by his neighbours and almost died in a freak accident a year ago, local people told Reuters.

Lawrence Soper was arrested on Wednesday in the town of Peja following an international arrest warrant.

Soper is accused of sex offences while he was a teacher in the 1970s and 1980s in Britain. British media said the former abbot from Ealing, west London, now in his 70s, had jumped bail in 2011 and a European warrant was subsequently issued.

For the past four or five years he lived under the name Andrew Charles Kingston in a secluded street near the centre of Peja. He had even started to speak Albanian.

"We were shocked," said a neighbour, who declined to be named.

"He told me he was a historian writing a book about Kosovo, we even gave him cakes, and meat when we had a barbecue. He told us he had a wife and she died and he was alone living on his pension. A very nice person."

"Whenever it was sunny he would go on to the balcony to read books. We saw him as a poor person and our tradition says you have to help people who are alone. But we saw in the media that we were wrong," another...