Fourniret: I am not a Dutroux n° 2

(B2 archives) The author of the kidnapping of a young girl in Belgium fiercely denies any involvement in similar cases committed in France

The Dinant council chamber should today (July 29) confirm Michel Fourniret's continued preventive detention. 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 failed kidnapping and the start of a judicial investigation

On June 26, near Ciney station in Belgium, he approached a young teenager, Marie-Asumpcion (Ascension), 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 ».

A relatively troubled past reassembled by investigators

Quickly, in fact, the Belgian and French investigators brought the past, at least troubled, of Fourniret - several condemnations in France for similar facts in the last thirty years - to certain unsolved abductions of children: the disappearance of Estelle Mouzein in the 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!

convoluted explanations

Fourniret acknowledges being the owner of two of them, including a Riot Gun, without having a weapon port. But, for the other two 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 July 29, 2003