Former Nunavut priest Eric Dejaeger during his first trial in Iqaluit. Photo: APTN file
A defrocked Catholic priest is expected to plead guilty to more historical sex crimes involving Inuit children in Nunavut on Thursday.
Eric Dejaeger, a former Belgium missionary already convicted of dozens of sex crimes involving Inuit children, adults and animals, is scheduled to appear in Iqaluit court tomorrow.
Dejaeger was living in an Ontario half-way house when police charged him with eight additional counts of child sexual abuse from his time as an Oblate priest in Igloolik, Nunavut between 1978 and 1982.
Dejaeger, who is in his late 70s, was on statutory release after serving two-thirds of a 19-year sentence for 32 sex crimes against Inuit children and adults in Igloolik, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut.
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Ontario lawyer Scott Cowan is representing Dejaeger, a former priest with the Missionary Order of Mary Immaculate (OMI) Lacombe in Canada. Dejaeger is no longer a priest but remains a member of the Oblates.
Dejaeger was born in Belgium and became a Canadian citizen in 1977. He was first arrested in 2011 on immigration charges in Belgium and deported to Canada to face the sexual abuse charges laid in 1995.
He has been convicted of dozens of sexual offences in Canada, involving children, adults and animals in Nunavut and Alberta.
The pending guilty pleas were first reported by CBC News.
