The competent Belgian authorities decided yesterday to take the file of Laura Trappeniers (66) and her still missing husband Marc Olbrechts (71) to the federal level, who were murdered in Tenerife. In concrete terms, the federal public prosecutor’s office can now also propose investigative actions to the Spanish judiciary and send troops. It remains a mystery for the time being what exactly happened, our colleague on site on the Spanish island notes.
LOOK. No Belgian investigators will be sent to Tenerife, but there will be cooperation in other ways
The file of the Flemish couple who disappeared on April 22 on the Spanish island of Tenerife remains in the hands of the Spanish judiciary, but now the Belgian federal public prosecutor’s office can also view and assist in the ongoing investigation. At the request of the Spanish authorities, a file had already been opened at the Halle-Vilvoorde public prosecutor’s office – where the couple comes from – but now that it has emerged that there was a violent death, the file has been federalized, it is said.
“We contacted the Spanish authorities for the first time on Friday with an offer to provide support, but because it is the weekend, there has been no response yet,” said federal prosecutor’s office spokesman Eric Van Duyse. At the moment it is not the intention to send Belgian investigators to Tenerife, but if that proves necessary or useful, this can always happen.
The couple’s loved ones are happy with the decision to federalize the file. On Wednesday, Spain’s National Center for Missing Persons (CNDES) reported that the Belgian woman, 66-year-old Laura Trappeniers, who had been missing on the island with her husband since April 22, had been found. The Spanish authorities did not say at the time whether the woman was still alive or not.
Woman murdered, man missing
It has now emerged that the woman was the victim of a murder. Her body, with a bag over her head and mutilated, was found in the sea last Saturday. Because the body was already decomposing, it is assumed that she had been dead for several days. Her husband, 71-year-old artist Marc Olbrechts, is still missing.
The couple had lived on the Spanish island since 2009, when they both suddenly disappeared on April 22 in the coastal town of Callao Salvaje in the south of Tenerife. An investigation report followed two days later. Their car, a blue Opel Mokka with a Spanish license plate, was also gone. On April 27, the woman’s badly mutilated body was found in the Atlantic Ocean. She was clearly killed violently, but it remains a great mystery how and why, and what happened to her husband.
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WATCH ALSO. Still no trace of Marc Olbrechts in Tenerife
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Tags: Federal public prosecutors office takes case murdered Laura Trappeniers disappeared husband Tenerife
