Updating with new confession

dpa German Press Agency
Published: Thursday October 12, 2006

Paris- A 38-year-old French woman has admitted giving birth to and killing three infants, including two she had while living in South Korea, France Info radio reported Thursday. According to the report, Veronique Courjault admitted to French police that she had killed three babies she bore in 1999, 2002 and 2003. The child she had in 1999 was reportedly born in France.

She was in custody in the central French city of Tours after a DNA test carried out in France confirmed that she and her husband were the parents of two infants found frozen in their home in Seoul, South Korea, last July.

Earlier French media reports said that the bodies were those of twins she gave birth to in 2003.

The daily Liberation reported Thursday that Veronique Courjault admitted to police that she had concealed her pregnancy from her husband, who was often away from home on business, and gave birth to the twins alone, in the bathroom of her home, in 2003.

Already the mother of two boys, now aged 10 and 11, she reportedly told police that she "did not want these children."

A judicial investigation for murder will be formally opened later Thursday, judicial sources in Tours said.

Her husband discovered the cadavers in the freezer of their home in Seoul last July 23 and immediately notified the police. DNA tests carried out by South Korean police revealed that they were the parents of the infants.

However, on holiday in France at the time, they denied that they were the parents of the dead children and refused to return to the country. A DNA test administered in France confirmed the results of the Korean test.

Autopsies in South Korea failed to determine how the infants died. They detected no bruises or other indications of violence, and police there suspect that Courjault simply did not feed them.

However, Liberation reported that Courjault was said to have told French investigators that she suffocated them.

Both Courjaults remained in police custody Thursday, but neither had yet been charged with a crime.

South Korean officials meanwhile said they were aware of the latest developments in the case and were in communication with their French counterparts.

"As of now, we're trying to figure out exactly how the arrest was made and we're currently using diplomatic channels and cooperating with the French Justice Ministry by exchanging e-mails and information," Jeon Song Won, a prosecutor at the Justice Ministry's international criminal department, was quoted as saying by the daily The Korea Herald on Thursday.

He said that a summons had been sent to France, but the couple refuses to return to South Korea.

"But the French government has the responsibility by law to report their findings to us on the matter, so we expect the joint investigation to continue rather smoothly," Jeon said.

© 2006 dpa German Press Agency