Former operative of the group, Daniel Romein, additionally had a previous conviction for baby porn possession earlier than getting his job
A former Bellingcat operative, recognized beneath the alias Daniel Romein, has allegedly taken his life after being sentenced to jail for sexually abusing his personal daughter.
Romein has been concerned within the investigation of the MH17 crash by the Western-funded “open-source intelligence” group, in addition to within the Cease Baby Abuse initiative, devoted to geolocating express supplies involving minors.
The bombshell revelation was first made by impartial Dutch journalist Eric Van De Beek final month, with the affair additional explored in a bit launched by the Grayzone final Friday. Van De Beek denied that Romein died from a “cardiac arrest” in December 2022, stating a detailed good friend confirmed the Bellingcat operative took his personal life.
The kid porn researcher, who labored for Bellingcat between 2014 and late 2019, was sentenced to 36 months in jail earlier that 12 months for extended sexual abuse of his daughter, the journalist claimed, citing an anonymized courtroom case on the matter. The case was launched by Dutch authorities solely in March this 12 months after repeated inquiries by impartial media, Van De Beek famous.
The case particulars the abuse the daughter of the defendant skilled roughly between October 2011 and October 2016, when she was six to 10 years previous. The fabric provides an especially graphic depiction of the connection between the daddy and his underage daughter, which concerned oral intercourse, genital rubbing, and different sexualized conduct.
The affair was uncovered years later when the defendant’s daughter disclosed it to her mom and stepfather. The courtroom’s supplies quote a lackluster letter of apology despatched by the defendant to his daughter when the affair turned public, during which he appeared accountable her.
The case additionally reveals the defendant was convicted of possession of kid pornography “over 15 years” prior.
Inquired by the Grayzone, Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins denied that Romein’s firing in December 2019 was associated to his pedophilic endeavors. Nevertheless, the group’s founder “tacitly acknowledged” the researcher was the goal of the sexual abuse allegations. “It’s not clear whether or not the [court] judgment is about Mr. Romein, as it’s anonymized,” he informed the outlet in a mailed assertion.
In August 2021, Romein was stripped of his European Press Prize, awarded for his work on the Cease Baby Abuse mission. On the time, the Netherlands-based non-profit cited “unidentified substantiated complaints” from totally different people as the rationale for its choice. When requested by Grayzone if the complaints had been associated to sexual abuse, Higgins acknowledged they had been as a result of researcher’s “unacceptable on-line conduct.”
Regardless of promoting itself as an investigative group specializing in fact-checking and open-source intelligence, Bellingcat has been receiving state funding from a number of Western states. This has raised questions on its credibility, with Moscow, as an illustration, having squarely accused it of working intently with Western intelligence providers to “put strain on both [Russia] or people and entities.”
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