0.cached.png
By Newsweek Editors
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
During the world wars, soldiers died by the thousands in the dense forests of the Ardennes along the boundary of France and Belgium. In the age of the European Union, with open borders and Brussels-based institutions, the specters of conflict and division that haunt these woods would seem a thing of the past. But the story of a cross-border serial killer who buried at least two of his young victims in the Ardennes is raising questions about how well that Union protects its citizens.
Last week French police unearthed what was left of 12-year-old Elisabeth Brichet and 22-year-old Jeanne-Marie Desramault, both killed in 1989, on property surrounding an old hunting lodge deep in the forest. Authorities were led to the site by its former owner, a 62-year-old Frenchman named Michel Fourniret, who has confessed to nine rapes and murders over 15 years. He told investigators he liked "to go hunting for virgin girls."
Read More on News
He could have been stopped long ago. Fourniret was a convicted sex offender in France. But he was paroled after six months in prison in 1987, and moved across the border into Belgium. He might as well have turned invisible. Unaware of his background, Belgium even issued Fourniret a "certificate of good character" that allowed him to get a job at an elementary school. Then Europe signed the Schengen Treaty and opened its borders. That allowed Fourniret to keep killing in France and yet live a quiet life with his wife and child on the other side of the border. "Schengen made life easier for everybody, including criminals," says Pietro Petrucci, spokesman for the Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner in Brussels.
Internal security remains one of European states' most jealously guarded prerogatives. Even Europol, set up in the 1980s to coordinate among member countries, "only makes possible the synthesis of information," says Eric Halt of the French Union of Judges. "It is up to national governments to agree on who leads the investigation and how to go about it." The issues nowadays are even more sensitive in terrorism cases, which get bogged down in politics, diplomacy and the secrets of intelligence services. France, for instance, has been seeking to extradite suspected terrorist Rachid Ramda from Britain for eight years. All legal obstacles have been waved, say French officials--yet Britain still hasn't complied. Italy, meanwhile, fought for 15 years to get alleged terrorist Cesare Battisti extradited from France for crimes committed in 1978 and 1979. France complied only this month.
In January, the EU adopted a Europe-wide arrest warrant and is exploring ways of increasing judicial cooperation. But the Fourniret case has convinced many that the EU is not moving fast enough. Freedom of movement "developed much more rapidly than police and justice cooperation," says Petrucci, "and now we're trying to catch up." Belgium has asked that plans for a Europewide criminal database be put on the agenda at a meeting of justice ministers this month. But sovereignty issues and EU bureaucracy will likely delay any action for months. Meanwhile, Belgium is investigating 12 cases that could be linked to Fourniret. France may reopen 30 unsolved incidents, and Holland and Denmark are expressing interest as well. For Europe, crime remains a last frontier.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines