A 19-year-old student from Liège was abducted last weekend from a Brussels night club where she had been partying and taken to an apartment in Charleroi, where she was raped by five individuals before managing to alert her relatives. Two suspects arrested at the apartment have long police records, mainly for robbery with violence, the Office of the Public Prosecutor (OPP) in Charleroi stated.
The victim had gone to the “Le You” discotheque in Brussels on Saturday. In her statement to the police, she said she only remembered parts of the evening, which could be due to her consuming alcohol and/or other substances, perhaps without knowing it. She recalled waking up later in a car, then in an unknown apartment which turned out to be in downtown Charleroi. The young woman was then raped by three individuals, according to OPP-Charleroi.
On the following day, two other persons arrived at the apartment and the victim was again abused. She finally succeeded in recovering her mobile phone on Monday and alerting relatives. Thanks to Google Maps, she was also able to find out her location, which enabled the local police in Charleroi to rescue her on the night of Monday to Tuesday.
The two men arrested in the apartment are well known to the justice authorities. One of them, the resident of the apartment has a six-page police record. In addition to convictions by the police court, the 26-year-old was once sentenced to three years in prison and 300 hours of community service for attempted robbery with violence. He has now been charged with rape and kidnapping.
The second suspect, born in 1994, lives in De Panne, West Flanders. He was convicted in 2012 of robbery with violence, threats and abuse of confidence and received a four-year suspended prison sentence. He was then sentenced to 25 months in prison in 2013. According to OPP-Charleroi, he was released from prison three months ago. This suspect has now been charged with rape.
The Brussels Times
