Posted on 09/12/2014 10:04:29 PM PDT by Gamecock
A defrocked Catholic priest has been found guilty of raping dozens of children and a sled dog in the Canadian Arctic, where he worked as a missionary for decades.
The Belgian-born Eric Dejaeger, 67, was on Friday convicted of 31 counts of sexual offences against children and one count of bestiality.
At the start of his trial last November in Iqaluit, the capital of Canada's northernmost Nunavut territory, Dejaeger acknowledged and pleaded guilty to eight out of 80 original charges.
Justice Robert Kilpatrick ruled the evidence had been weakened by the passage of time, and whittled down the number in the indictment.
The defence and prosecution have 30 days to appeal the decision. Otherwise, Dejaeger is expected to be back in court in January for sentencing.
The Iqaluit court clerk told AFP that more than 20 victims from the Inuit hamlet of Igloolik, on the shores of the Northwest Passage, testified at the emotionally charged trial.
Public broadcaster CBC said they recounted how Dejaeger used his position as a missionary to lure and trap them into sex, threatening them with hellfire and separation from their families if they exposed him.
From 1978 to 1982, Dejaeger worked alongside other local priests in Igloolik in what was then the Northwest Territories, and eventually took on Canadian citizenship.
In 1990, he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for sexually assaulting eight children in Baker Lake, Nunavut.
Following his release from prison and facing fresh allegations, he fled to his birth country of Belgium, where he was arrested in 2011 and subsequently returned to Canada.
He has been in custody ever since.
Surprised the dog didn’t bite him.
And a sled dog?
Sled dog? Gives iditarod a whole new meaning.
That sled dog was a lying bitch.
CC
Nothing short of being put to death would serve humanity. But, of curse, the Canadians don’t believe in the death penalty. To bad.
Castrate him to the hilt, give him a large of jar of Vaseline and dump in general population.
This man was a monster. These small communities in the far North were ripe pickings. What a horrible betrayal of an honest and trusting community.
The bitch set me up!
Did the dog give testimony?
Too bad he didn’t get eaten by a polar bear.
Now drop him into the throat of a woodchipper. ..
Sorry, but he should be neither castrated, thrown to the polar bears, nor executed. But neither should he ever walk again amongst us. It’s a Canadian thing
And just whom do you propose inflicting him on?
Canadians need to rethink capital punishment. They're treating the criminal way better than he treated their victims.
Not giving him justice is a HUGE INJUSTICE to the victims of his crimes.
It's time to start thinking more about the victims and less about the perpetrator.
Why you all hating on him? He was born to love dogs!
I thought that was odd too. How did they determine this? I’m kinda afraid to know.
Teethmarks?
ew..... yeah, I don’t think I really want to know.
Yikes! And Yuck!
Yikes! And Yuck!
Who bit who? Or is it whom? I can never remember.
Good question.
But a good dentist would have been called in to identify the teethmarks.
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