A self-confessed French serial killer believed to have murdered at least seven young women over a 15-year period was extradited on Monday from Belgium to his native France to face trial.
Journalists saw 63-year-old carpenter Michel Fourniret, cuffed and wearing ski goggles to disorient him, handed over to French authorities after arriving at the French-Belgian border in one of two grey unmarked Belgian police cars.
He was then taken to jail in the town of Chalons-en-Champagne, where he was to await his trial expected to take place in Charleville-Mezieres, in the French Ardennes region bordering Belgium, in the second half of this year.
Fourniret had been held in custody in Belgium since June 2003, when he was arrested for the attempted abduction of a 13-year-old Belgian girl.
He is accused of having committed seven murders — six in France and one in Belgium — between 1987 and 2001.
His wife, 57-year-old Monique Olivier, was extradited to France early in December. She had been detained in Belgium for more than a year, and faces charges of complicity linked to a number of the murders.
Olivier’s confessions in June 2004, a year after Fourniret’s arrest, led to the charges against her husband.
He himself has subsequently confessed to some killings, and judicial authorities in France and Belgium have agreed that a first trial should be held in France.
“I want the trial to be as rapid as possible, but I also want it to be based on as solid a case as possible,” the state prosecutor, Francis Nachbar, told reporters.
Nachbar added that investigations were ongoing into the murders in France, with re-enactments scheduled for the coming months.
Beyond the crimes of which he is accused, police also suspect Fourniret — nicknamed the “Monster of the Ardennes” in the media — of the murder of six other young women and girls on both sides of the border, although insufficient evidence has been found to add those to the charge sheet.
Nevertheless, prosecutors are looking to see if they can find links between Fourniret and three other murder/missing person cases, including that of Joanna Parrish, a 20-year-old Briton who was raped and killed in 1990.
Fourniret has already served time behind bars, for voyeurism and assault. It was there he met Olivier, a volunteer prison visitor.
The murders of which he is accused date from the year of his release from that prison term. Two of the bodies were found buried on a country estate in northern France that he and Olivier had bought.
The stepfather of one of the seven victims, a 13-year-old girl named Manyama Thupong whose body was found in Belgium in 2002, said on Monday that justice was too long in coming.
The extradition, he said, had been carried out three months later than expected, and there were some suggestions the trial might not even start until 2007.
“It’s just not possible for us to wait so long. We want the trial to go ahead as planned in September,” he said. – AFP