A Romanian man (34) was arrested in Bakel on Friday evening in connection with the death of a Romanian boy (9) from Belgium. The suspect is the boy’s stepfather, according to Belgian media. He was arrested by the Dutch police. The nine-year-old boy, Raul, was found in the water of the Houtdok in Ghent on Thursday. He had been missing since early this year.
The boy’s body was found in the water on Thursday, near the place where he lived with his mother and his sister (11). That reports the Belgian HLN. The sister indicated the place where the police had to search for the body. The boy’s body was in a sports bag weighted with stones and thrown into the water.
It is still unclear how the boy died. According to the broadcaster, the boy would have been abused by his mother and her boyfriend. He would have died from that, only to be dumped in the water by the couple in a sports bag. The boy’s mother was arrested on Friday.
That same evening, the stepfather was also arrested in Bakel. A European arrest warrant had been issued for the man’s arrest. He will be brought before the examining magistrate in Amsterdam on Monday. This then concerns his extradition to Belgium, as the Belgian broadcaster knows.