Judicial Authorities ask Germany to remove images of Jürgen Conings’ remains from website
The Federal Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne (Flemish liberal) has told VRT News that the Judicial Authorities are in talks with their colleagues in Germany to try and get photographs that were taken of the remains of Jürgen Conings removed from websites. The photographs were taken by the hunter that found the fugitive soldier’s remains in the Dilserbos in Limburg Province on Sunday. Jürgen Conings had taken his own life and had been dead for between 1 and 4 weeks when his body was found.
Mr Van Quickenborne also said in the interview that he also plans to draft a bill that if passed by parliament would made corpse desecration a criminal offence.
The Limburg Judicial Authorities have opened an investigation into the hunter that found the body of the fugitive soldier Jürgen Conings on Sunday morning. The man took photographs of Jürgen Conings’ remains before the arrival of the police. He is then alleged to have sold the photographs to a German newspaper. The newspaper published the photographs on its website. The Federal Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne has told VRT News that he wants the photographs taken off the website.
The Limburg Judicial Authorities have launched an investigation into whether by taking the photographs and selling them on the man breached privacy laws and image rights legislation.
"I think that it is horrible. Taking images of a deceased person at such an awful moment and then selling them on. The Judicial Authorities are in talks with the Germans to try and get the photographs taken down”, Mr Van Quickenborne said.
"But I also want to change the law. Currently, the image desecration is not punishable by law. By image desecration I mean taking unwanted images, photographs of film footage of a body. Grave desecration is already an offence”.