Israel agrees to pay for burial of Johan Geurts after family refuses.
By MATTHEW WAGNERjohan geurts 298.88(photo credit: Courtesy)
After three weeks of languishing in the basement of the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, the corpse of Johan Joseph "Hans" Geurts, a Dutch national, will be brought to burial Friday thanks to an exclusive story in the Post.
The funeral will take place at Kibbutz Revadim at noon.
The story in the Post, which described Geurts's complicated sexual ties with four women which produced both legitimate and illegitimate children, and his turgid, pub-going existence in Israel, generated enormous media interest in Holland, which in turn put pressure on Geurts's two children - his legal heirs - to come forward and authorize the release of the body.
According to John Lubber, consul of the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Israel, Geurts's seven brothers and sisters, who had refused to cooperate with attempts to locate his two children, sent word on Thursday that their father could be buried but that they would not foot the bill.
Geurts's friends in Israel speculated that family relations had deteriorated 15 years ago when Geurts abandoned his two Dutch children, now aged 18 and 25.
Geurts ended up in Israel after meeting and having an illegitimate daughter with Limor Cohen, sister of Dana International, winner of the 1998 Eurovision contest. Cohen refused to comment.
The State of Israel agreed to pay for the burial after Geurts's family refused to do so.
R., a friend of Geurts's, said that she was trying to raise the money needed for the deceased man's headstone among friends.
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