Appeals lodged in porn, animal sex case

16 February 2005

AMSTERDAM — Both the public prosecutor and four defendants have lodged appeals against the jail sentences imposed for involvement in the kidnapping and rape of three asylum seekers in a shocking pornography and animal sex case last year.

The public prosecutor is unsatisfied with what it claims are lenient sentences a court in the Dutch city of Lelystad handed down on the defendants on 27 January. It is also appealing against the acquittal of another suspect.

The gang members were sentenced to jail terms ranging from five to 10 years after been found guilty of kidnapping three female North African asylum seekers in Belgium in March and April last year.

The women were taken via the Dutch city of Almere to a farm shed in the northeastern Dutch village of Kraggenburg, where they were raped and forced to have sex with Rottweiler dogs for a pornographic video.

Four people — Dutchman Edward van E., Belgian Mario M. and two women, Lorencia F. and Rose B. — were convicted. Sentencing of a fifth suspect, Philip M. (brother of Mario), was held over until March or April pending a psychiatric assessment. He has already been found guilty. A sixth person, Gerda de V., was acquitted.

Prior to handing down its convictions, the court heard evidence on how the women were raped and forced to perform oral sex on a dog. The court was also told a victim was forced to eat a condom used to anally rape her and another was forced to drink urine from a baby’s bottle, Dutch evening newspaper NRC reported.

The women were also beaten and threatened with a gun and the gang was accused of planning to make “snuff” film in which the victims would have been dismembered and then killed in front of the camera.

Two of the women escaped, later followed by the third, who ran naked from the shed to a nearby farmhouse in April 2004 and alerted police, leading to the arrest of the suspects.

The appeal hearing is expected to be held in Arnhem Court, but a date for the proceedings has yet to be announced.

Subject: Dutch + Belgian news