Re: The News from Belgium
- From: "Runge" <philsa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 22:26:08 +0200
ha another would be journalist
Ot of course
and who hides behind names he doesn't understand ???
the newport clown !
"Toots Thielemans" <michaelnewport@xxxxxxxxx> a écrit dans le message de
news: 1151063210.946248.57120@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Search for sisters widens as Belgian nightmare returns
By David Rennie in Brussels
(Filed: 23/06/2006)
Belgian authorities yesterday issued a pan-European missing child alert
for two stepsisters who vanished nearly a fortnight ago.
The case has dominated Belgian media since Stacey Lemmens, seven, and
Nathalie Mahy 10, disappeared while playing outside a seedy pub at 2am
on June 10 as their parents drank inside.
Nathalie Mahy (left) and Stacey Lemmens
A search is underway for Nathalie Mahy (left) and Stacey Lemmens
Abdallah Ait Oud, a convicted paedophile and serial child rapist, has
been arrested on suspicion of kidnapping the girls. He has admitted
being at the pub in Liège but denied any involvement, saying he was
incapacitated that evening by alcohol and cocaine.
The girls' parents have also been extensively questioned, revealing
grim details of life in the post-industrial slums of French-speaking
Belgium.
Christiane Granziero, Stacey's stepmother, received a suspended jail
sentence of 12 months last week for starving, beating and locking up
her children in a basement while working as a prostitute.
Catherine Dizier, Nathalie's natural mother, also had her youngest
child taken into care.
The case has sparked painful memories of Belgium's most infamous
modern-day criminal, the paedophile murderer Marc Dutroux, who abducted
his first two victims in Liège, a decade ago.
Those two girls starved to death in a dungeon built in Dutroux's
basement, while their abductor was in police custody for another crime.
In the latest case, hundreds of officers have dragged the river Meuse,
scoured abandoned buildings, and searched a large derelict military
site with sniffer dogs.
Abdallah Ait Oud
Arrested: Abdallah Ait Oud
There has been anger that Ait Oud, 39, who is of Moroccan descent, was
at liberty at all. He was sent to a closed mental home in 2001 for
raping a 14-year-old girl, and deemed not mentally responsible for his
actions.
But in December 2005, he was judged mentally competent and released.
Under Belgian law, he could not be tried again as an ordinary criminal
for the same rape, and so he resumed his life as a drifter and petty
criminal.
However, Prof Kristine Kloeck, a criminologist and director general of
Child Focus, the Belgian arm of the European Centre for Missing and
Sexually Exploited Children, said the fault lay with the judge and
panel that released him unconditionally, not with the law.
She said: "There was no obligation to release him unconditionally, he
could have been released on parole, which would involve the police
keeping a close eye on him, supervision by a parole officer, and
monitoring by specialists."
Prof Kloeck defended the Belgian police. "I really believe, after the
Dutroux affair, the police have worked very hard. In this case, they
have done everything possible, but they cannot work miracles," she
said.
The Dutroux case shattered Belgians' faith in their criminal justice
system, as they learned how police incompetence and corruption allowed
him to abduct, torture and rape six girls, killing four of them.
After his conviction, Dutroux briefly escaped from custody after
stealing the gun of his police escort - a final humiliation that led to
the resignation of the country's police chief and two ministers.
Belgium's police force was completely restructured after the case, and
now pays extreme attention to missing child cases.
In the latest lead, police said a credible witness had come forward to
say they had spotted two girls enter an apartment block during the
night that Stacey and Nathalie went missing.
A search of the building by police found traces of blood in the
basement, which is being DNA tested.
.
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