CBC News
June 6, 2011
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/story/2011/06/06/dejaeger-preliminary-hearing-date.html
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| Eric Dejaeger, right, is escorted out of the Iqaluit courthouse on Jan. 20, shortly after he was brought back to Canada from Belgium. He remains in custody at the Baffin Correctional Centre.Eric Dejaeger, right, is escorted out of the Iqaluit courthouse on Jan. 20, shortly after he was brought back to Canada from Belgium. He remains in custody at the Baffin Correctional Centre. (CBC) |
A preliminary hearing will take place next year for Eric Dejaeger, a former Roman Catholic priest accused of sex crimes against children in Nunavut in the late-1970s and 1980s.
Three weeks have been set aside for the preliminary hearing, which will start on Feb. 20, 2012, the Nunavut Court of Justice confirmed Monday in Iqaluit.
Dejaeger, now 64, faces more than 30 criminal charges — including indecent assault and buggery — from multiple complainants who claim he abused them when they were children in Igloolik, Nunavut.
The alleged offences took place between 1978 and 1982, when Dejaeger was serving as a missionary in the eastern Arctic community.
A Canadian citizen, Dejaeger fled to Belgium around 1995, after he had served a jail term in Canada for sex crimes against children in another Nunavut community, Baker Lake.
Dejaeger lived freely in Belgium, his country of birth, for almost 16 years until January, when Belgian immigration officials declared that he had overstayed his legal residency in that country.
Since Dejaeger was brought back to Canada on Jan. 19, he has been remanded at the Baffin Correctional Centre in Iqaluit.
During Monday's court hearing, defence lawyers confirmed that Dejaeger has waived his right to a bail review, meaning he will remain in custody until the preliminary hearing begins.
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