Flemish ‘Eskimo Father’ who abused dozens of children released on bail

Former Flemish priest Eric Dejaeger (76) has been released on bail in Canada while he awaits a new trial. The man was previously sentenced to 19 years in prison for dozens of counts of child sexual abuse.

Eric Dejaeger moved to Canada as a missionary decades ago. There he would live for years with an Inuit community in Igloolik in the northern Canadian territory of Nunavut. During his stay there he was guilty of dozens of acts of sexual abuse. He was first convicted for this in 1989. He was then sentenced to five years in prison for 10 counts of child abuse. When he was released in early 1992, he fled to Belgium because he learned that he was being investigated again.

An international arrest warrant was issued for him and in 2011 he was deported from our country for illegal residence. The West Flemish man had already become a Canadian citizen in 1977 and had thus lost his Belgian nationality.

In 2015, Dejaeger was sentenced to 19 years in prison for 32 counts of sexual abuse involving children, adults and animals. But in 2022, after eleven years in prison, he was released again on parole. Although his freedom did not last long. He was arrested again in June 2023. Eight ‘new’ offenses had surfaced that he allegedly committed between 1978 and 1982 when he stayed in Nunavut. (Read more below the photo)

It has now been decided to release the man on bail pending his trial. But because Canada is aware of his flight risk, he is not allowed to just go wherever he wants. Dejaeger will stay at the Henry Traill Community Correctional Center in Kingston, a correctional center where he is under almost constant surveillance. He is allowed to go outside during the day, but there are also restrictions on this. Shopping and going to medical appointments are allowed, but he must avoid parks and public swimming pools. He also has a curfew.

The next hearing will take place on June 10.

READ ALSO. Belgian ex-father Eric Dejaeger (75) received 79 years in prison for child abuse in Canada, but has now been released after 9 years: “A wolf in the robes of a missionary”