A Belgian schoolteacher who sabotaged the parachute of her love rival has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for her murder.
Els Clottemans (26), was found guilty yesterday of cutting through key parts of the parachute system of 38-year-old Els Van Doren so that neither it nor a safety chute opened during a jump on November 18th, 2006 over eastern Belgium.
Ms Van Doren (38), jumped that day with 11 other parachutists, including Clottemans, from a small plane flying at 10,000m.
The 12 jurors agreed with the prosecution that the evidence was circumstantial but overwhelming. They agreed that jealousy was a motive. The killer and her victim were intimately involved with the same man, a Dutch skydiver, whom Clottemans wanted for herself.
She and Ms Van Doren were members of the same parachute club.
The 30-year sentence means, under Belgian law, that Clottemans will serve a minimum of 10 years in jail.
Prosecutor Patrick Boyen had earlier called for a life sentence, saying there were no mitigating circumstances.
Defence lawyer Katrien Van der Straeten said Clottemans' youth and clean criminal record should lessen the penalty, as well as the fact that she had lost her father at the age of two. "Do not close the door fully, but give her a ray of hope," she said.
Clottemans, who had pleaded not guilty, chose not to speak at the sentencing.
During the trial, the jury was told that Clottemans, an accomplished skydiver, knew how to disable a parachute.
Evidence showed she also sent anonymous letters about Ms Van Doren’s love life to mutual friends and is psychologically unstable, having attempted suicide in December 2006.
Her trial opened on September 24th with the accused sitting nervously near the mud-caked parachute bag and helmet that Ms Van Doren wore on the day she died.
The jury saw video footage Ms Van Doren had shot during what would be her last jump. She and Clottemans were among the last four jumpers to leave the Cessna plane.
The video, shot by Ms Van Doren’s helmet-mounted camera, showed how the victim looked up, yanking at her gear, hoping to see an open canopy above her. It never happened. She crashed into a garden in Opglabbeek, a small town in eastern Belgium, and was killed instantly.
Neither her parachute, nor a smaller safety chute designed to open the main parachute in case of a malfunction, opened. Investigators testified the gear had been tampered with.
Agencies