Dutch ‘horror dentist’ faces court in France

dentistA Dutch dentist wanted in France for mutilating nearly 3,000 patients has been extradited to face a court hearing, news agency ANP says on Friday.

The dentist, Mark van Nierop, will appear in court in Bourge. He is accused of treating 2,800 patients in a ‘bizarre and painful manner’ without medical need, local media reported.

Van Nierop is said to have pulled healthy teeth, broken people’s jaws and left broken bits of equipment in patients’ gums.

‘He said he carried out 17 treatments on 17 different teeth for my wife in 10 minutes, and charged her for a tooth that had been pulled 10 years earlier,’ one local, Gerard Martin, told AFP in July.

Van Nierop, 50, was tracked down in Canada last September and extradited to the Netherlands on an international arrest warrant.

A Dutch court ruled last November he could be sent to France for trial. Van Nierop challenged the extradition, saying he suffered from ‘psychological problems’ and had suicidal tendencies which could only be treated in the Netherlands.

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