Belgian widow asked to pick up hanged husband's rope
AFP September 26, 2013, 10:25 pm
Brussels (AFP) - Seven months after her husband's suicide, a young Belgian woman was forced to relive the trauma when authorities requested she pick up the rope he used to hang himself.
According to Belgian press reports Thursday, the woman received a letter out of the blue in August from an office set up to help crime victims asking her to contact them regarding items collected at his death.
"I was just beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel," she was quoted as saying.
Feeling "a bit confused because I thought I'd already recovered everything" and "scared of what I might find", she asked a cousin to call on her behalf.
"She explained that I could pick up the rope," the widow told La Province daily that on her request did not give her name.
"It was hard enough to cope with the fact that I hadn't understood how much he was suffering, and now I have to deal with this," she added.
The deputy mayor of the widow's town made a complaint to the justice ministry on her behalf and was told the authorities had respected procedure.
