Fugitive former priest faces another sex charge

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Posted: Nov 21, 2011 6:04 PM CST

Last Updated: Nov 21, 2011 6:02 PM CST


Erik Dejaeger leaves an Iqaluit, Nunavut, courtroom on Jan. 20, 2011 after his first appearance for child sexual abuse charges in Igloolik dating back to the 1970s. He's also now facing charges in Edmonton that go back to that decade.

Erik Dejaeger leaves an Iqaluit, Nunavut, courtroom on Jan. 20, 2011 after his first appearance for child sexual abuse charges in Igloolik dating back to the 1970s. He’s also now facing charges in Edmonton that go back to that decade. Chris Windeyer/Canadian Press

A former Roman Catholic priest already facing indecent assault and other charges in Nunavut has now been charged in incidents that are alleged to have occurred in Edmonton between 1975 and 1978.

Erik Jose Dejaeger, 64, is being transferred to Edmonton from the Baffin Correctional Centre in Nunavut, where he is being held.

Dejaeger has been charged with indecent assault and gross indecency in the Edmonton incidents, which the Edmonton Police Service sexual assault section began investigating in April 2011.

Three months earlier, Dejaeger was returned to Canada from his Belgium home to face additional outstanding sexual assault charges, which allegedly occurred in Nunavut.

His first court appearance for the Edmonton incidents is scheduled for Dec. 2.

Sexual assault unit Det. Barb Clover says Dejaeger was not a priest, but was in a position of trust when the alleged assaults occurred.

In Nunavut, Dejaeger is charged with sex crimes against young people that are alleged to have occurred when he was working in Igloolik between 1978 and 1982. He fled charges in Canada in 1995 and lived in Belgium for 16 years until he was expelled and returned to Nunavut.

Dejaeger had already pleaded guilty in 1990 to nine counts of sex crimes against boys and girls in Baker Lake, another community in Nunavut, and was sentenced to five years in prison.

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Father Eric Dejaeger Sex Charges Go Back More Than 35 Years

Eric Dejaeger

Huffington Post Canada

First Posted: 11/21/11 04:18 PM ET Updated: 11/21/11 10:50 PM ET

EDMONTON – A Catholic priest awaiting trial on sex-related offences in the Arctic is being transferred to Edmonton to face more charges.

Edmonton police allege Father Eric Dejaeger, now 64, abused a youth in the city between 1975 and 1978. He is charged with indecent assault and gross indecency.

Police Det. Barb Clover would not give details on the offence, but said Dejaeger was in a position of trust over the young person. The person, now an adult, contacted police in April.

Clover said Dejaeger faces charges in relation to about 30 people in Nunavut, so it’s a possibility there are more complainants in Edmonton.

“We do urge them to come forward if that’s what they’d like to do,” she said.

Dejaeger was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1978 after he finished studying at Edmonton’s Newman Theological College. He then went north.

In 1990, while in the community of Baker Lake, Nunavut, he pleaded guilty to nine sex offences relating to boys and girls aged nine to 18. He served part of a five-year sentence, then went home to Belgium.

Mounties charged him in 1995 him with more sex offences relating to previous time he spent as a priest in Igloolik. But it took years to arrest him.

The RCMP and Interpol issued various warrants, but Dejaeger continued living quietly in an Oblate community in Belgium. Years later, a Belgian newspaper published a story that he was a wanted man. He was expelled from the country on immigration violations and returned to Canada last January.

He has been held at the Baffin Correctional Centre in Nunavut and awaits a preliminary hearing there next February on the dozens of outstanding sex offences that allegedly occurred in Igloolik between 1978 and 1982.

The Catholic church earlier confirmed that it reached out-of-court settlements with at least 30 of the alleged victims in Igloolik. The settlements involve allegations not tested in court.

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