Fourniret charged with more French murders

DINANT, Belgium, Feb 3 (AFP) – French self-confessed serial killer Michel Fourniret was charged here Thursday with murdering two young French women in the late 1980’s, bringing to six the number of such cases brought against him this week, his lawyers said.

The charges were brought by the Dinant examining magistrate in the presence and on behalf of two colleagues from Charleville-Mezieres, northeast France.

Fourniret, a 62-year-old carpenter, was charged with kidnapping, detention, rape and murder in connection with the disappearance of 17-year-old Isabelle Laville in Auxerre, France on December 11, 1987, said attorney Luc Balleux.

Laville’s body was never found. But Charleville-Mezieres prosecutor Francis Nachbar pledged that French investigators would make the search for her body a “priority” in the coming months.

“Fourniret really wants to cooperate to find the body and has described a very precise location, as well,” said Philippe Jumelin, one of his French lawyers.

The self-confessed killer was also charged Thursday with the abduction, detention, rape and murder of 20-year-old Fabienne Leroy, who was shot and killed in Mourmelon, eastern France, on August 4, 1988, his lawyers added.

His estranged wife Monique Olivier, 56, was also charged here Thursday in connection with the two cases.

She was accused of complicity in the kidnapping and rape of Laville and complicity in the kidnapping, rape and murder of Leroy.

Olivier has previously been charged with complicity in two other murders blamed on her husband.

Fourniret, who had been arrested in Belgium in June 2003 over the abduction of minors and sexual misconduct, has been accused by his wife of killing 10 people in France and Belgium between 1987 and 2001.

He has admitted to nine of the murders – those of eight women and girls and of one man.

© AFP