- Title: BELGIUM: CONVICTED RAPIST CONFESSES TO MURDER OF SIX GIRLS
- Date: 30th June 2004
- Summary: (U6)DINANT, BELGIUM (JUNE 30, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. WIDE SHOT OF DINANT JUSTICE PALACE WHERE MICHEL FOURNIRET IS HELD 0.03 2. SLV JOURNALISTS OUTSIDE COURT BUILDING 0.07 3. CLOSE OF SIGN FOR JUDICIAL POLICE 0.12 4. CLOSE OF JOURNALISTS READING NEWSPAPER LE MATIN WITH PICTURE OF YOUNG VICTIM ELISABETH BRICHET 0.26 5. CLOSE OF MORE NEWSPAPER HEADLINES - FOURNIRET COULD BE INVOLVED IN NINE KIDNAPPINGS 0.39 (U6)E, BELGIUM (JUNE 30, 2004) (REUTERS) 6. WIDE SHOT OF JUSTICE PALACE IN LIEGE 0.45 7. VARIOUS OF GENERAL PUBLIC PROSECUTORS ARRIVING AT PRESS CONFERENCE AND SITTING DOWN. 0.53 8. WIDE OF MEDIA 1.00 9. SCU SOUNDBITE (French) GENERAL PUBLIC PROSECUTOR CEDRIC VISSART DE BOCARME SAYIN "(She, Fourniret's wife says that) She knows that her husband has committed enormous crimes, the account tops nine people at the moment, so this is a case hors normes and that in this case there is one victim, Elisabeth Brichet, said to to have been kidnapped by Fourniret, according to his wife, to have been sexually assaulted and to have been killed by strangulation thirty six hours after the kidnapping in his property in France." 1.36 10. WIDE SHOT OF PROSECUTORS PRESS CONFERENCE 1.44 11. SCU SOUNDBITE (French) GENERAL PUBLIC PROSECUTOR CEDRIC VISSART DE BOCARME SAYING "He has also confessed that not knowing what to do with the child, he felt obliged to kill her, which he did, he says, and burried her in a forest near his property." 1.58 12. WIDE SHOT OF NEWS CONFERENCE 2.02 13. SCU CAMERAMAN 2.05 14. SCU SOUNDBITE (French) GENERAL PUBLIC PROSECUTOR CEDRIC VISSART DE BOCARME SAYING "Effectively at this time, he confessed to sixmurders or assassinations, we will later determine how we will call them, but with unfortunately this idea of young girls, so... 2.24 15. CUTAWAY MEDIA 2.26 16. WIDE OF DE BOCARME SURROUNDED BY MEDIA 2.30 17. SCU SOUNDBITE (English) -GENERAL PUBLIC PROSECUTOR CEDRIC VISSART DE BOCARME SAYING "We have the declaration of one person , the woman (wife) of Mister Fourniret, and she told the Belgian Policer that her husband has killed nine persons and one young girl from Namure and the child was killed for sexual reasons by her husband." 3.04 18. WIDE SHOT AT END OF PRESS CONFERENCE 3.13 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 15th July 2004 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: DINANT AND LIEGE, BELGIUM
- Country: Belgium
- Reuters ID: LVA26TZ55R60Q1STBYE4B87TOE3I
- Story Text: A French forest warden and convicted rapist had
confessed to killing six girls, Belgian public prosecutors
have said , raising the spectre of another child sex
scandal as big as that of Marc Dutroux.
Prosecutors told a news conference in the Belgian
city of Liege that Michel Fourniret, 62, was also being
investigated for the deaths of three other girls.
"He has admitted to six counts of murder," Public
Prosecutor Cedric Vissart de Bocarme said.
The number of victims could rise to nine as
investigators try to confirm accusations made against
Michel Fourniret by his wife, prosecutors told a news
conference in this eastern city.
"The number of crimes that have been committed
obviously makes us think of a serial killer," said Public
Prosecutor Cedric Visart de Bocarme. "The motive was
sexual." Fourniret, 62, has been under arrest in Belgium for
a year as part of an investigation into the attempted kidnap
a girl in the southern town of Ciney.
He confessed to murdering the six girls after his wife,
Monique Olivier, told investigators he had killed at least
nine, prosecutors said.
Four of the six were French and the other two Belgian.
The victims included 12-year-old Elisabeth Brichet,
whom he kidnapped, raped and strangled to death in 1989,
Visart de Bocarme said.
Brichet's disappearance had mystified investigators for
the last 15 years and her body has yet to be found.
Another victim worked as an au pair at Fourniret's
house, looking after his son, the prosecutors said.
A gaunt man with glasses and closely-cropped hair,
Fourniret moved with his wife and son to Belgium from
France in 1992 after serving part of a prison sentence for
raping minors.
The crimes were reminiscent of those committed by Dutroux.
On June 22, a court sent the country's most hated
criminal to life in prison after a three-month trial for
kidnapping and raping six girls and killing four of them.
The crimes, committed more than seven years ago,
shocked and angered Belgians, many of whom came to suspect
complicity on the part of police and politicians. His trial
produced no evidence of any such link.
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