Lover in parachute sabotage jailed

The judge in a Brussels court said the only mitigating circumstance was the killer's unstable mental condition.

Her sentencing yesterday came a day after Els Clottemans, 26, was found guilty of sabotaging in 2006 the parachute of a friend with whom she shared a lover.

The jury found that Clottemans was motivated by jealousy.

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

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 agreed with the prosecution the evidence was circumstantial, but overwhelming.

They agreed 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.

During the trial, the jury was told 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 was psychologically unstable, having attempted suicide in December 2006.

Her trial opened on September 24 with the accused sitting nervously near the mud-caked parachute bag and helmet Ms Van Doren wore on the day she died.

Video footage was shown to the court which 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.

Throughout her trial, Clottemans maintained her innocence. On the last day in court, she told the jury: "For four years now I have been accused of something I did not do. That does something to you ... They questioned me (saying) 'It's you! It's you!' But it is not me!"

The victim's son and daughter, aged 17 and 19 respectively, left the courtroom in tears after Clottemans pleaded for clemency, saying she had lost her father at a young age.

The 30-year sentence means, under Belgian law, Clottemans will serve a minimum of 10 years in jail.

She chose not to speak at the sentencing.

Interest in the case in Belgium had been such that a live television feed was provided in the courthouse in Tongeren, in the east of the country.