Serial rapists pre-detention extended

The suspect rapist who was arrested in June in Utrecht after evading capture for almost 20 years, will not go free any time soon, it has been decided in court.

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"27992","attributes":{"class":"media-image alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-22419","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"150","height":"134","alt":"gerard+t2"}}]]A court in Utrecht ruled this morning that there is enough evidence to warrant an extension of the pre-detention of Gerard T. The 51-year-old man from Utrecht is suspected of raping at least three women in the city between 1995 and 2001.

So far there has been a 100 percent DNA match established in these three cases; police are investigating if 14 other open rapes that had been committed in the city around that time were also his work.

T. was already a suspect back in 1995, but he could not be prosecuted because he did not allow authorities to take a DNA sample from him then. When he was held and sentenced in June this year for bicycle theft, a mandatory DNA sample was taken and a match made.