Former French police officer faces trial for allegedly raping Filipino street children
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A member of judicial police in Marseille, France.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France – A former officer with the police’s child protection unit in the southern French city of Marseille will face trial on Sept 1 for allegedly raping and sexually abusing Filipino street children.
The 46-year-old, who has been in custody for four years, was arrested after the head of a youth shelter reported that a 17-year-old resident, a rape victim, was receiving inappropriate late-night messages from the lead officer on his case.
Marseille prosecutors launched an investigation and raided the man’s home in June 2021, where they seized thousands of child pornography images.
The probe led them to the Philippines, to where he travelled each year as head of the French branch of a charity helping street children in Manila.
Two Filipino orphan boys, aged 12 and 15, told investigators that he paid the equivalent of a few dozen euros in exchange for sex on a piece of wasteland and then at his apartment.
“This was a Machiavellian scheme – an unprecedented modus operandi in which someone presents themselves as an ambassador for child protection,” said Ms Celine Astolfe, lawyer for France’s Foundation for Childhood, a plaintiff at the trial.
Four other child protection charities are also plaintiffs.
The criminal trial, held in the southern city of Aix-en-Provence, is due to conclude on Sept 4. AFP
