{"id":29168,"date":"2025-03-31T04:31:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T08:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=29168"},"modified":"2025-03-31T04:31:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T08:31:00","slug":"bar-owners-arrested-over-assaults-on-41-women-in-belgium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2025\/03\/31\/bar-owners-arrested-over-assaults-on-41-women-in-belgium\/","title":{"rendered":"Bar owners arrested over assaults on 41 women in Belgium"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"ssrcss-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"ssrcss-7uxr49-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1\">\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Three bar managers in Belgium are among five men who have been arrested in connection with an investigation into the rape and sexual assault of dozens of women, local police say.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Prosecutors said the suspects were linked to the spiking of drinks of at least 41 female victims from December 2021 to December 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The three suspects ran the establishments in the north-western city of Kortrijk where the spikings took place. Investigators say they believe they discussed the attacks with each other.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Western Flanders public prosecutor&#8217;s office said in total five men were arrested on Wednesday and Thursday in connection with the investigation into spiking.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ssrcss-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"ssrcss-7uxr49-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1\">\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Two men who were arrested appeared before an investigating judge on Thursday, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Another two men are still being questioned by detectives while the fifth man has been released after being interviewed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The men are suspected of rape, sexual assault and illegal administration of harmful substances, the prosecutor&#8217;s office said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Officials believe drugs were mixed into the women&#8217;s drinks, including ketamine, a general anaesthetic used for recreational purposes because of its hallucinogenic effects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The young women were offered shots of alcohol, often with an amaretto flavour, after which they woke up the next morning groggy in an unknown bed or in their own bed with clear evidence of sexual abuse,&#8221; Tom Janssens, another spokesman for the prosecutor&#8217;s office spokesman, told Flemish public television VRT.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c20l075ej5eo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">Three bar managers in Belgium are among five men who have been arrested in connection with an investigation into the rape and sexual assault of dozens of women, local police say. Prosecutors said the suspects <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2025\/03\/31\/bar-owners-arrested-over-assaults-on-41-women-in-belgium\/\" title=\"Bar owners arrested over assaults on 41 women in Belgium\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[4796,11154,1846,1584,8324,11155],"class_list":{"0":"post-29168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-world","9":"tag-belgium","10":"tag-kortrijk","11":"tag-rape-allegation","12":"tag-sexual-assault","13":"tag-spiking","14":"tag-western-flanders","15":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29170,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29168\/revisions\/29170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}