Fugitive couple jailed in Belgium for Briton’s 1996 murder

A Belgian woman and a Franco-Ivorian man were imprisoned in Belgium on Wednesday over the 1996 execution-style murder of a Briton that had made them among Europe’s most-wanted fugitives.

The prosecutors’ office in the city of Bruges and jail officials confirmed to AFP that Hilde Van Acker, 56, and Jean-Claude Lacote, 53, were taken to separate prisons upon their arrival on an overnight flight from Ivory Coast, where they had been arrested in November.

The two had been convicted in absentia nine years ago for killing British businessman Marcus John Mitchell with two shots to the head in May 1996 in the Belgian coastal town of De Haan.

While they were to be officially informed of the life sentences handed down, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors’ office, Fien Maddens, said “it would be logical that they will ask for a retrial”.

During their years on the run, the pair were hunted by police in 21 EU countries. Their arrest came weeks after the EU’s Europol service launched a campaign appealing for help from internet sleuths.

British media said that at one point Lacote had fled to South Africa, where he worked on a reality-TV crime show.

In Ivory Coast, he ran a small aviation firm, according to a source close to the industry.