CANADA
Nunatsiaq Online
DAVID MURPHY
Updated 4:23 p.m., Jan. 21
No. Never. Not true. It didn’t happen.
Eric Dejaeger stuck to his guns while on the witness stand Jan. 21, saying over and over, for the benefit of his lawyer, that he did not commit repeated sexual offences against dozens of complainants who have testified against him.
Dejaeger, a former Oblate priest who faced 80 charges during a trial that began in November 2013 — most of them sexual offences against children in Igloolik — has pleaded guilty to eight.
After a five-week break, the judge-only trial before Justice Robert Kilpatrick resumed this week at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit with defence lawyer Malcolm Kempt presenting his case.
Kempt began Jan. 21 by taking evidence from the man at the centre of this emotional trial: Dejaeger.
Wearing a prison-issued blue sweat suit, his large grey beard stretching to his chest, the 66-year-old walked to the stand with ease, put his hand on the Bible, stood upright, stated his name, and when asked to swear to tell the truth, promptly said “I do.”
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