Four women on trial after séance at Dutch cemetery

Four women went on trial in a Utrecht court earlier this week for desecrating children’s graves during a séance they held at Amersfoort’s Rusthof Cemetery five years ago.

Prosecutors have demanded community service sentences of up to 200 hours for the women, who were trying to contact the dead after hours during a paranormal gathering. Two others with them, who are said only to have observed the ritual, are not being charged.

The cemetery’s director at the time was fired for giving the women permission to conduct research into the “so-called energies of the deceased” after closing time. The parents of children buried there had not been notified of the gathering.

Desecration?

The case has been before courts before, but the legal question now is whether the women’s activities constitute desecration.

The participants, who were found out after the father of a buried child discovered a camera at the grave site, allegedly used cat toys with lights to help them communicate with the dead children.

“It is terrible to be confronted with this kind of fact after the loss of a loved one,” prosecutors said. “The way the suspects have dealt with the graves goes against any sense of respect.”

At least 10 relatives have reburied their loved ones in other graves as a result.

Distraught parents

“When people ask me how it feels, I say it feels like rape,” Radia Drost-Laabidi told RTV Utrecht. She and her husband buried two of their daughters at Rusthof. She’s suffered from insomnia ever since and barely visits her daughters’ graves. Now she’s looking for answers. “Why?” she says. “That is my question.”

Only one defendant turned up in court this week, 81-year-old Irene B. Lawyers for the defendants argued that since nothing was damaged or destroyed, there is no desecration.

The court is expected to deliver its verdict next month.