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(CNN) - Cardinal George Pell will take his case to the Australian Supreme Court in a final attempt to revoke his sentence on five counts of child sexual abuse.
The Australian Supreme Court confirmed Tuesday that Pell's legal team submitted a request to request permission to appeal his sentence.
The measure follows a failed attempt to overturn the cardinal's conviction in the court of appeals, leaving the Supreme Court as the only means to clear his name and avoid a six-year prison sentence.
The 78-year-old ex-Vatican was convicted last year on a charge of sexual penetration of a child and four counts of committing an indecent act with a child. The charges refer to two incidents involving two 13-year-old chorist children in the mid-1990s.
The attacks occurred when Pell was the Archbishop of Melbourne and a rising figure within the Catholic Church. He is the highest-ranking Catholic official to be convicted of child sexual abuse in an institution that for decades has been accused of covering up alleged abuses by his clergy.
The Supreme Court is expected to agree to review the case given the high profile of the cardinal and the intense public scrutiny of his sentence. It is likely to be heard by a panel of judges, which would issue a majority ruling, probably sometime next year.
Pell was convicted in December after a secret trial to avoid harming another potential trial, which was eventually abandoned. He was sentenced to six years in prison and must serve three years and eight months before being eligible for parole.
George Pell
