Love-triangle sky-diver found guilty of murder

The verdict against Els Clottemans, 26, ended a month-long trial that revealed no hard proof that she had sabotaged Els Van Doren’s parachute so that neither it nor a safety chute opened during a jump over eastern Belgium on November 18 2006.

Ms Van Doren, 38, jumped that day with 11 other parachutists, including Clottemans, from a small plane flying at 30,000 feet.

The 12 jurors in the town of Tongeren 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. She and Ms Van Doren were members of the same parachute club.