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Fourniret: I am not a Dutroux number 2

(Archives) The author of the kidnapping of a young girl in Belgium fiercely denies any involvement in similar cases committed in France

The council chamber of Dinant (Belgium) must today confirm the preventive maintenance of Michel Fourniret. This Frenchman, residing in Belgium, is currently charged with attempted child abduction and indecent assault but not rape and forcible confinement, as advanced times.

A determined kid

On June 26, near Ciney station in Belgium, he approached a young teenager, Marie-Asumpcion, barely 13 years old. Under the pretext of asking for directions, he takes her into his van. But the girl, determined and astute, manages to escape and even find the license plate number of her attacker. Arrested shortly after, Fourniret quickly confesses. " He never disputed the reality of the facts. says his lawyer, Maître Castaigne. On the other hand, he " denies any involvement in other child abductions ».

More kidnappings?

Quickly, in fact, the Belgian and French investigators linked the troubled past of Fourniret - several convictions in France for similar facts in the last thirty years - to certain unsolved child abductions: the disappearance of Estelle Mouzin in Paris region, for which the SRPJ from Versailles will travel to Dinant, like that of two young girls, Céline Saison and Mananya Thumpong, kidnapped in France, and whose bodies will be found in Belgium.

A stunned customer

My client is " totally stunned by all the business that we want to put on his back. He is not a Dutroux number 2 “says his lawyer. Duties of investigation, additional instructions, were carried out in all directions, on both sides of the border. But without success so far. The garden of the defendant, his house in Sart-Custinne, turned over from top to bottom by the investigators, who do not intend to leave any clue or secret cache aside, does not give more results. Otherwise the discovery of weapons. Four in total. Strange for a simple forester!

Four weapons discovered

Fourniret acknowledges being the owner of two of them, including a Riot Gun, without having a weapon port. But for the two other pistols, from a theft at the border post of Givet, they would come, according to the accused, " showmen, with whom he worked and who would have left these weapons at home ! Rather convoluted explanations that do not plead in favor of a man whose personality, particularly complex, is difficult to define. The psychiatric investigation is still ongoing.

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Article published in France-Soir on July 29, 2003

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

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