Killer faces extradition from Belgium

11 August 2005

AMSTERDAM — Belgium is expected to shortly extradite escaped killer Marciano Ernst back to the Netherlands.

“We are working on it and we think (it will be ready) in a few days,” Henry Hambeukers, a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office in Rotterdam, said on Thursday. “We don’t know precisely when he will be handed over.”

Hambeukers said that there was no evidence that Ernst committed any crimes after his escape from a psychiatric clinic in the Netherlands last week. However, Ernst has yet to be questioned by Dutch police.

The 34-year-old fugitive was arrested by Belgian police when he sought a loan of money from the Dutch embassy in Brussels. He was using a false name.

Ernst received a two-year jail sentence and a compulsory TBS hospitalisation order in 1997 for the manslaughter of his ex-girlfriend’s new partner.

He ran off when he was being led from one building to another at a clinic in the Dutch town of Halsteren last Thursday.

Police published his photograph and name, warning he could be dangerous when not on medication to suppress delusions he suffers from.

Subject: Dutch + Belgian news