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A Franco-Ivorian and his Belgian wife were convicted of killing a British businessman in a Belgian seaside resort a quarter of a century ago.
The court in the Belgian city of Bruges declared Jean-Claude Lacote and his wife Hilde Van Acker guilty on Tuesday evening of having shot 44-year-old Marcus Mitchell.
Lacote, 54, and Van Acker, 57, were arrested in Côte d’Ivoire two years ago after leading colorful lives on the run in the United States and Africa.
They had pleaded not guilty, but now face life imprisonment.
The trial, which began on March 5, revealed several lives of Lacote, who was a clothing dealer in the United States, was a television producer in South Africa and ran an airline in Côte d’Ivoire.
Prosecutors described the couple as “professional criminals” and said the murder was linked to attempted fraud.
On May 28, 1996, Aviation Executive Mitchell was found dead in De Haan, an upscale North Sea resort in Belgium, with two bullets in the head.
Investigators quickly discovered that he had been in regular contact with Lacote and Van Acker by telephone.
According to prosecutors, Mitchell loaned Lacote a large sum of money for a false lead on a potentially lucrative deal and the couple fell out.
The investigation has revealed extraordinary details about the couple’s life since the murder.
Reality TV-show
They were arrested on June 2, 1996, shortly after the body was found, at Charleroi airport near Brussels.
Released on bail later that same year, they fled to the United States, where they married and founded a clothing company in Miami, Florida.
In 2007, Belgian investigators followed Lacote to South Africa, but were unable to organize his arrest.
In South Africa, Lacote produced a reality TV show on crime stories and claimed to have excellent relations with local police.
The couple moved to Côte d’Ivoire and lived there for a decade, raising a daughter born in 2007, but were eventually arrested in Abidjan in November 2019.
Lacote had taken over the management of an airline backed by a Lebanese businessman and had access to high-level Ivorian political circles.
But he said he turned down a post as government minister in order to raise his daughter in a better environment than the one he had experienced.
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