|
62-year-old Frenchman Michel Fourniret was sentenced in France in the 1980s for rape and indecent assault on minors. Following his early release, he moved to Belgium's wooded Ardennes region, which he used as a base for kidnapping young women from Belgium and France. He's meanwhile admitted killing 12-year-old Elisabeth Brichet, a Belgian girl thought earlier to have fallen victim to Dutroux. Her mother was one of the organisers of the so-called White March in Brussels in 1996, in which 300,000 Belgians protested against the country's failing judicial system.
Fourniret has been under arrest in Belgium for a year as part of an investigation into the attempted kidnap of a 13-year-old girl in the southern town of Ciney. The girl had managed to escape from Fourniret's car and jot down the number on its licence plate. Until this week, however, Fourniret had denied any involvement in a string of kidnappings and murders of missing young women in Belgium and France.
Turnaround
His confession came after his wife went to
the police accusing him of committing at least nine murders. The
woman decided to give a detailed statement after Marc Dutroux'
ex-wife Michelle Martin had shown remorse in court, where she was
sentenced to 30 years in prison. Fourniret's wife stresses that,
like Martin, she knew of her husband's criminal acts from the very
start but did nothing to stop him.
Fourniret has now been officially charged with murdering Elisabeth Brichet and another unidentified girl who allegedly worked as an au pair at his home. The accused earlier told French police that he had killed six girls. He is also suspected of murdering the wife of a former cellmate, who was one of the leaders of the French leftwing extremist group Action Directe. He said the man had entrusted him with Action Directe's "war chest".
Murder for money
Upon his release from prison,
Fourniret went to collect the money together with the cellmate's
wife, but got into a row over his share, after which he is thought
to have killed her. Fourniret also told his interrogators that he shot and killed a driver at a parking
area next to a motorway "because he needed cash".
He's believed to have used the money from Action Directe to buy a chateau near the northern French town of Sedan. Fourniret confessed to burying at least two of his victims on its vast estate. French police will start excavation work when the Belgian police have finished questioning him.
Meanwhile, the Belgian authorities want to know why their French counterparts never told them about Fourniret's earlier convictions. Once in Belgium, he was given a certificate of good character, which he needed to get a job as a canteen supervisor at a school in the Ardennes.
Criminal database
Child Focus, an
organisation that aims to track down missing children, has called
for a European database of paedophiles convicted in Europe. Police
in the southern Dutch province of Limburg have asked prosecutors in
Liege to find out whether Fourniret also had a hand in the
disappearance of several Dutch girls in recent years.
So far, Fourniret's interrogators have found no explanation for
certain periods in which he appears not to have engaged in his
murderous activities, but they're not ruling out the possibility
that more murders will come to light.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Disclaimer: Radio Netherlands is not responsible for the content of external Web sites |
|
 |
||||
 |
||||
Tags: Action Directe, Belgium, Elisabeth Brichet, France, Marc Dutroux, Michel Fourniret, paedophile, porno, sexual abuse